PRICE  25  CENTS 


Ray  Burton 


A  Chicago  Tale 


"By  ?M.   TRAIN 


RAY  BURTON 


a  Cbicago  ZTale. 


By,  M.   train. 


CHICAGO. 
1895. 


Copyrighted  1895. 
By  M.  TRAm. 


To   My   Wife, 


CHAPTER  I. 


ON  Morgan  street,  between  Monroe  and 
Adams  streets,  is  an  old,  wooden  house, 
which  has  for  many  years  enjoyed  the  distinc- 
tion of  standing  almost  within  the  shadows  of 
two  well-known  public  buildings — the  Scammon 
school  and  the  Second  Baptist  church.  The 
house  and  my  birth-place  are  identical, — the 
former  an  unpretentious  residence;  the  latter  a 
matter  of  so  little  consequence  that,  I  have 
been  told  on  good  authority,  when  I  was  born 
the  lady  next  door  but  one  did  not  hear  of  it 
for  full  ten  days  after  the  event,  and  then  only 
through  the  loquacity  of  the  milkman;  and 
when  she  called  to  see  me  she  gave  it  as  her 
opinion  that  Mrs,  Burton's  boy  would  be  in 
trousers  before  the  neighbors  knew  of  his  arri- 
val. 

Births  in  general  are  so  common  and  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  that  they  seldom  receive  more 
than  a  passing  notice,  and  to  this  one  in  partic- 
ular there  would  a,ttach  no  interest  whatever. 


6  RAY  BURTON. 

were  it  not  for  the  existence  of  a  tale,  which  to 
be  told,  must  be  brought  from  the  beginning. 

As  soon  as  physical  conditions  would  permit, 
it  was  apparent  that  I  had  gray  eyes — possibly 
light  blue,  a  very  scanty  supply  of  hair  which 
was  quite  silken,  a  dimple  in  my  chin,  small 
limbs  and  hands,  and  a  general  diminutive  ap- 
pearance, which  was  in  keeping  with  the  six 
and  one-half  pounds  which  had  been  entered 
in  my  father's  memorandum  book,  together 
with  my  sex  and  the  date  of  my  birth.  I  was 
a  fretful  child,  I  have  been  told,  and  the  unself- 
ish and  loving  care  shown  me  by  my  mother 
through  the  first  years  of  my  feeble  existence 
is  only  one  example  of  the  same  old  story, 
written  boldly  in  the  annals  of  every  household, 
which  can  be  traced  out  by  the  seams  and  wrin- 
kles on  every  dear,  old  mother's  face.  That 
blessed  mother-love  that  surrounds  us  in  child- 
hood and  youth  like  a  halo  of  glory,  is  too 
often  allowed  to  pass  without  due  appreciation, 
and  into  the  reflections  that  come  with  maturer 
years  there  steals  a  rueful  poignancy  that  no 
amount  of  repentance  can  quite  remove.  Oh 
restless,  impatient  childhood  !  Take  time  in 
your  youthful  days  to  fall  in  love  with  your 
mother.     Make  her  your  sweet-heart,  the  recip- 


RAY   BURTON.  7 

ient  of  your  best  love  and  gifts,  and  in  after- 
days  when,  perchance,  her  face  will  not  be 
among  those  you  see  daily,  the  recollection  of 
having  tried  to  lighten  her  burdens  and  brighten 
her  days  will  follow  you  like  a  benediction. 

In  writing  one's  own  history,  nothing  is  easier 
than  hastily  passing  over  that  period  of  child- 
hood in  which  the  memory  has  received  no  last- 
ing impressions,  and  about  which  you  know 
nothing,  only  as  it  has  been  told  you.  I  shall, 
however,  recount  an  incident  that  occurred  in 
that  uncertain  period  of  my  life,  the  recollection 
of  which  comes  to  me  now  like  the  burden  of 
some  long  forgotten  song,  or  what  more  nearly 
expresses  it,  a  dream  that  I  might  have  had  a 
month  or  a  year  ago.  I  was  playing  by  the 
front  door,  and  by  some  mishap  fell  with  my 
face  downward  on  the  step,  cutting  a  gash  on 
the  under  part  of  my  chin,  and  at  the  same  time 
biting  a  hole  through  my  tongue.  The  screams 
that  I  uttered  must  have  been  sufficient  to  arouse 
the  whole  neighborhood,  for  the  lady  next  door 
but  one  and  my  mother  arrived  on  the  scene 
almost  simultaneously,  and  by  their  united  ef- 
forts succeeded  in  stopping  the  flow  of  blood 
and  soothing  the  pain.  The  lady  remarked  to 
mother  that  the  neighbors  surely   knew  of  my 


8  RAY    BURTON. 

existence  now,  if  they  had  not  heard  of  it  be- 
fore, and  accompanied  the  expression  with  such 
a  good-natured  laugh,  that  I  thought  I  might 
be  persuaded  to  like  her  after  my  tongue  and 
chin  were  well.  This  period  between  non-rec- 
ollection and  recollection  differs  somewhat  in 
individuals,  but  I  think  I  must  have  been  at 
least  three  years  old  when  this  happened. 

About  this  time  I  remember  of  my  father 
coming  home  one  day  and  in  great  excitement 
telling  mother  of  a  big  fire  down-town,  but  that 
this  part  of  the  city  was  in  no  danger.  Outside 
of  our  grate  I  had  a  very  limited  idea  of 
what  a  fire  meant,  and  consequently  was  as 
ignorant  of  the  magnitude  of  the  conflagration 
then  in  progress  and  its  consequent  losses  and 
sufferings,  as  if  I  had  been  an  inhabitant  of 
some  far  distant  city  instead.  I  recall  now  that 
for  many  days — even  weeks  afterward  a  gloom 
seemed  to  have  fallen  over  our  home,  a;id 
father  talked  of  "no  insurance,  total  loss,  ruin," 
etc.,  terms  that  had  little  meaning  to  me  then. 
Those  terrible  days  of  destruction,  broken  for- 
tunes and  ruined  businesses  need  no  recounting 
here.  That  fire  stands  on  the  pages  of  history 
without  a  parallel,  and  every  school  boy  and 
girl  is  familiar  with  it. 


RAY    BURTON.  9 

My  father  was  a  partner  in  a  newly  organ- 
ized business  venture,  and  the  amount  of  money 
found  to  be  his  share  after  that  ruthless  and 
premature  dissolver  of  partnerships,  was  so 
small  that  he  found  it  necessary  to  seek  em- 
ployment in  the  reconstruction  that  immedi- 
ately set  in,  until  his  finances  would  again 
permit  him  to  engage  in  business.  He  was  a 
native  of  Pennsylvania,  his  father  being  of 
Scotch  parentage  and  his  mother  of  German. 
My  mother  was  a  native  of  Scotland,  emigrat- 
ing to  this  country  with  her  parents  when  but 
twelve  years  old.  They  met  in  a  social  way, 
by  attending  the  same  church,  and  a  friendship 
grew  out  of  the  acquaintance  which  developed 
into  love  and  marriage.  It  is  not  strange  that 
I  should  feel  a  kind  of  proprietorship  in  the 
old  church,  not  only  because  it  was  the  place 
where  my  parents  met,  but  because  it  was  the 
first  and  only  church  I  had  known  in  early 
childhood.  It  is  an  old  landmark  of  the  West 
Side,  standing  on  the  southeast  corner  of  Adams 
and  Sangamon  streets,  which  was,  when  it  was 
built,  in  the  quietude  of  a  residence  district; 
but  now  is  almost  crowded  off  its  own  grounds 
by  that  ever  restless  tide  of  business  that  each 
year  extends  farther  and  farther  outward.     It 


10  RAY    BURTON. 

fronts  on  Sangamon  street,  and  the  patrol  box 
on  the  corner  stands  like  a  silent  sentinel 
watching  the  entrance  and  warning  away  any 
who  might  have  evil  designs  upon  the  building 
or  the  picket  fence,  that  extends  the  full  length 
of  the  Adams  street  side  and  on  each  side  of 
the  doorway.  There  is  nothing  about  the 
structure  designed  to  attract  attention,  unless  it 
be  its  extreme  plainness,  and  that  is  a  result, 
most  likely,  of  the  strict  economy  exercised  in 
its  construction,  rather  than  any  studied  pur- 
pose to  be  plain. 

The  general  appearance  within  is  in  keeping 
with  the  exterior, — apparently  having  been  built 
to  meet  a  certain  want  and  when  that  was 
reached,  it  was  of  little  consequence  what  it 
lacked  in  architectural  beauty.  At  what  age  I 
first  accompanied  my  parents  to  services  in  this 
church  is  somewhat  obscure  in  my  memory, 
but  I  am  sure  I  had  gone  there  many  times  be- 
fore I  had  been  impressed  with  the  sermons. 
From  my  earliest  recollection  there  had  always 
been  the  same  pastor,  the  same  familiar  faces 
in  the  adjacent  pews,  the  same  psalm  service 
and  prayer,  the  same  firstly,  secondly,  etc.,  in 
the  sermon,  all  of  which  had  the  humiliating 
effect  of  putting  me  to  sleep,  unless  I  made 


RAY    BURTON.  II 

strong  efforts  to  resist  the  drowsy  influence, 
which  I  always  tried  to  do,  for  mother  had  told 
me  it  was  wicked  to  sleep  during  services,  and 
rebuked  me  severely  when  I  hinted  that  deacon 
W.  was  a  possible  sinner.  On  one  particular 
Sunday,  however,  I  was  all  attention,  so  much 
so  that  father  looked  significantly  to  mother 
as  if  to  call  her  attention  to  the  unlooked-for 
state  of  my  mind.  The  regular  pastor  was  not 
in  his  accustomed  place,  but  in  his  stead  a  fath- 
erly looking  old  man,  with  rather  large  features, 
moderately  long  hair  parted  in  the  middle,  and 
a  plain,  conventional  coat  that  insisted  on  being 
buttoned  quite  up  to  his  chin.  At  this  time  I 
had  been  in  school  a  year,  perhaps,  and  had 
been  taught  to  read  by  my  mother  before  I  had 
attended  school,  and  had  read  several  juvenile 
books,  among  which  was  a  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
I  had  formed  a  very  high  opinion  of  the  great 
dreamer.  When  we  reached  home  after  the 
services  alluded  to,  I  am  sure  my  parents  felt 
somewhat  disappointed  when  they  found  that 
my  unusual  interest  on  that  occasion  was  not  so 
much  on  account  of  the  scholarly  discourse  as 
it  was  on  account  of  what  I  insisted  was  a 
marked  resemblance  between  the  minister  and 


12  RAY    BURTON. 

the  picture  of  John  Bunyan,  in  my  copy  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress. 

My  having  learned  to  read  before  I  had  been 
to  school  was  partly  due  to  my  mother's  untir- 
ing efforts  to  instruct  me,  and  partly  to  a  desire 
she  had  to  keep  me  out  of  school  until  I  should 
attain  to  what  she  termed  a  proper  age,  al- 
though she  allowed  me  to  go  a  term  earlier 
than  she  first  intended,  because  of  my  persist- 
ent pleading  to  be  permitted  to  enter,  so  I 
could  be  in  the  class  with  my  play-fellow, 
Arthur  Gray.  Who  does  not  remember  his 
first  day  at  school,  and  the  few  weeks  follow- 
ing, when  everything  was  so  strange,  so  differ- 
ent from  anything  he  had  ever  experienced  be- 
fore? For  my  part  those  first  few  days  cling 
to  my  memory  with  more  tenacity  ,than  many 
of  the  intervening  ones.  There  was  the  old 
school-room  with  its  desks,  each  one  made  to 
accommodate  one  pupil,  and  arranged  in  rows 
far  enough  apart  to  leave  the  impression  that 
each  occupant  was  expected  to  attend  to  his 
own  work;  the  windows  on  two  sides  of  the 
room,  with  their  old-fashioned  eight-by-ten 
panes,  the  lower  ones  stained  so  the  inmates 
could  get  no  glimpse  of  the  outside  world;  the 
black-board,  that  extended  across  the  end  and 


RAY    BURTON.  1 3 

down  one  side  of  the  room;  the  teacher's  desk, 
and  the  large,  steel  engraving  of  General 
Washington  that  hung  on  the  wall  just  behind 
it;  the  map  of  the  United  States  on  the  left  wall 
with  each  alternate  state  a  different  color, 
giving  it  the  mottled  appearance  of  a  crazy 
quilt;  the  old  eight  day  clock  on  the  right  wall, 
whose  short  hand  always  seemedto  move  slower 
as  it  approached  the  hours  of  twelve  and  four; 
and  of  most  importance  of  all,  the  teacher,  a 
kindly  faced  woman  of  rather  slight  proportions, 
who,  from  the  happy  way  she  managed  every- 
thing and  everybody  with  whom  she  had  to  do, 
must  have  had  several  years  of  experience  in 
the  art  of  training  children.  To  say  that  we 
loved  our  teacher  would  hardly  express  it  in 
sufficiently  strong  terms.  It  was  a  coveted 
privilege  to  be  permitted  to  stand  by  her  side, 
and  the  little  crowd  that  gathered  around  her 
at  intermission  to  show  love  and  to  receive 
notice  from  her,  must  have  been  a  source  of 
annoyance;  but  she  never  seemed  worried  with 
our  childish  attentions,  and  usually  would  take 
the  smallest  little  girl  and  the  smallest  little 
boy  on  her  lap,  and  with  the  larger  boys  and 
girls  standing  around  her  two  and  three  rows 
deep,  she  would  tell  us  little  stories,  that  were 


14  RAY    BURTON. 

quite  as  interesting  as  some  fables  that  I  had 
read  in  a  book  my  father  gave  me  soon  after  I 
had  learned  to  read.  Arthur  occupied  a  seat 
just  across  the  aisle  from  mine,  and  his  little 
sister,  Florence,  a  pretty  black-eyed  girl,  who 
had  recently  been  promoted  from  the  primary 
department,  sat  in  the  row  beyond  him — in  the 
B  grade.  She  was  one  of  those  restless  little 
beings  who  find  it  next  to  an  impossibility  to 
sit  still,  which  peculiarity  often  came  near  get- 
ting her  into  trouble;  but  Miss  Baldwin,  our 
teacher,  understanding  her  temperament,  was 
very  lenient  toward  her. 

I  found  it  hard  work  in  this  first  term  at 
school  to  keep  with  my  class  in  everything  ex- 
pected of  me,  for,  as  Miss  Baldwin  said,  I  was 
all  out  of  balance.  I  could  read  and  do  some 
parts  of  the  work  quite  well,  but  was  woefully 
lacking  in  other  branches  that  were  of  equal  im- 
portance; so,  in  order  to  do  the  work,  I  almost 
always  studied  at  home  of  evenings,  and  many 
times  felt  discouraged  and  even  wept,  when, 
after  having  tried  harder  than  ever  before  on 
some  particular  lesson,  I  found  I  could  not 
recite  as  well  as  some  other  members  of  the 
class  who  had  given  it  no  hard  study  at  all. 
However,  before  the  year  was  out  and  the  class 


RAY    BURTON.  I  5 

promoted,  I  had  evened  myself  up  sufficiently 
to  be  able  to  pass  the  examination  with  a  record 
that  compared  favorably  with  the  rest  of  my 
class-mates.  As  I  now  look  back  over  that  first 
school  year  with  Miss  Baldwin  I  think  the 
retrospect  offords  me  more  pleasure  than  of  any 
succeeding  year  that  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  attend 
public  school.  On  being  promoted  from  Miss 
Baldwin's  room  we  all  felt  that  we  were  leaving 
a  dear  friend,  but  I  took  consolation  in  the  fact 
that  she  had  a  few  times  called  at  my  home,  and 
I  was  sure  she  would  not  discontinue  her  visits 
because  I  was  no  longer  her  pupil,  and  ex- 
pressed myself  to  her  so,  and  asked  her  very 
cordially  to  continue  to  call  when  convenient, 
which  she  assured  me  she  would  do,  and  the 
mutual  friendship  that  sprang  up  afterward 
between  her  and  my  mother  was  largely  due,  no 
doubt,  to  this  pressing  invitation  from  an  admir- 
ing pupil. 

My  father,  by  strict  economy,  had  accumu- 
lated in  a  few  years  after  the  fire,  a  moderate 
sum  of  money,  sufficient  to  embark  in  the  com- 
mission business,  having  as  partner  James  Went- 
worth,  the  style  of  the  firm  being  Burton  & 
Wentworth.  Their  place  of  business  was  at 
that  geometrically  peculiar  point  just  north  of 


l6  RAY    BURTON. 

Lake  street,  where  it  requires  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  locality  to  determine  whether  one 
is  on  Market  or  South  Water  street,  although 
the  numbers  over  the  doors  convey  the  informa- 
tion that  the  latter  terminates  at  Lake  street 
and  the  former  begins  at  the  same  point.  The 
front  door  faced  southeast  and  the  rear  one 
opened  on  the  wharf,  where  lay  the  filthy,  dis- 
colored, inactive  water  of  the  river,  that  bore 
on  its  sluggish  bosom  no  signs  as  to  whether 
it  belonged  to  the  South,  North  or  Main  branch, 
and  emitting  an  odor  that  was  offensive  even 
in  a  produce  market.  On  this  wharf  and  in  the 
neighborhood  of  this  rear  door  lay  an  unex- 
plored region  that  was  very  inviting  to  an  eight 
year  old  boy.  I  was  first  allowed  to  view  this 
forbidden  ground  from  a  window,  where  I 
would  sit  for  an  hour  or  more  at  a  time  watch- 
ing the  busy  river  traffic.  The  shrill  whistle  of 
the  tug  boat,  the  deep  bass  of  the  steam  barge 
and  the  rippling  sound  of  the  row- boat  as  it 
went  sculling  by,  played  a  new,  wild  and  fasci- 
nating music  that  was  quite  captivating  to  me, 
notwithstanding  the  vile  stench  that  was  around 
and  over  all.  After  I  became  more  accustomed 
to  the  place,  father  took  me  to  walk  on  the 


RAY    BURTON.  1/ 

wharf  and  explained  many  of  the  objects  of 
interest  to  be  seen  there.  Just  under  the  abut- 
ment of  the  Lake  street  bridge  was  a  boat 
builder's  shop  which  was  a  veritable  "Curiosity 
shop."  Near  it  were  old  row  boats  turned  up- 
side down,  rusty  anchors  that  looked  like  they 
had  lain  unmolested  for  ages,  old  cordage  and 
plunder  of  one  sort  and  another  lying  in  such 
profusion,  that  the  approach  to  the  shop,  as  well 
as  to  the  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the  bridge 
above,  was  almost  obstructed.  After  this  inter- 
esting visit  to  this  busy  work-shop,  I  resolved  to 
see  it  again — the  next  time  being  in  the  com- 
pany of  Hankins,  a  man  who  helped  in  the 
store  and  who  had  at  one  time  been  a  sailor. 
He  answered  many  questions  that  I  asked  him 
about  boats  and  ships,  and  became  quite  didac- 
tic as  he  noted  the  interest  I  took  in  it.  After 
that  I  regarded  Mr,  Hankins  as  a  remarkable 
man,  and  held  Mr.  Cay,  the  old  boat  repairer, 
in  about  equal  esteem,  for  every  time  Hankins* 
made  a  clever  point  Mr.  Cay  would  say, — "Yes,, 
son,  them  are  facts,"  and  accompanied  the  ex- 
pression with  a  nod  that  almost  dislodged  his 
spectacles,  that  were  hidden  away  somewhere 
under   his   hat.     We   soon   came   to   be   great 


KAY    BURTON. 


friends,  and  otten,  on  leaving  the  store  after  a 
Saturday's  visit,  I  would  take  the  back  way  so 
I  might  look  in  and  shout  a  parting  salutation 
to  him. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  outside  appearance  of  our  house  was 
very  plain  and  unattractive,  so  much  so  that 
you  might  pass  and  repass  it  daily  for  years 
and  then  not  be  able  to  describe  any  particular 
thing  about  its  front.  It  had  been  painted  a 
dull  color  because  that  was  conceded  to  be 
the  best  adapted  to  the  smoky  atmosphere  of 
the  city, — Chicago  could  not  boast  of  a  char- 
tered association  for  the  prevention  of  the 
smoke  nuisance  at  that  time,  else  it  might  have 
been  given  a  gayer  dress.  The  double  front 
doors  opened  into  a  hall,  that  was  in  no  way 
different  from  a  dozen  other  halls  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, with  two  doors,  one  leading  to  the 
panor,  the  other  to  the  sitting-room.  There 
was  nothing  elaborate  in  the  furnishing  within, 
but  it  made  up  in  neatness  what  it  lacked  in 
ornate  qualities,  and  the  well  worn  armchair 
and  the  old  fashioned  sofa  seemed  to  hold  out 
an  invitation  to  all  who  entered  to  recline  upon 
them  and  rest.     From  the  old  piano  with   its 


20  RAY   BURTON. 

ponderous  legs  and  dark  green  cover,  to  the 
neatly  polished  kitchen  stove  there  was  evi- 
dence of  good  housewifery. 

"Ray,  have  you  seen  Arthur?" 

The  person  from  whom  this  interrogation 
came  entered  the  sitting-room  from  the  dining- 
room,  a  woman  of  medium  height,  gray  eyes, 
dark  hair,  and  perhaps  at  that  time  thirty-five 
years  old.  She  had  sad  but  pleasant  features, 
that  wore  an  expression  of  solicitude,  as  if  she 
had  it  in  her  mind  to  ask  you  if  you  were  quite 
well,  or  whether  you  were  not  too  warm  or  too 
cold. 

"No,  mother,  I  haven't  seen  him  to-day,"  I 
answered,  going  to  her  and  kissing  her,  as  was 
my  custom  when  I  had  been  away  from  the 
house  any  length  of  time. 

"He  appeared  to  be  very  anxious  to  see  you, 
and  said  he  would  come  again  later." 

"Didn't  he  tell  you  what  he  wanted,  mother?" 
said  I. 

"No,  son,  but  sit  by  the  window,  probably 
you  will  see  him  coming  soon."  I  had  scarcely 
seated  myself  before  I  saw  him  coming  and  I 
hastened  out  to  meet  him. 

"Hello,  Ray.  I  have  been  looking  for  you  all 
day.  I  want  you  to  come  to  my  birth-day  party 


RAY    BURTON.  21 

tomorrow  afternoon,"  said  Arthur.  "I  will  be 
twelve  years  old  and  mother  told  me  I  should 
invite  my  friends,  and  of  course  I  want  you  to 
be  one  of  the  party." 

"I  can't  promise  till  I  ask  mother,"  I  replied. 
"Come  and  sit  in  the  parlor  while  I  go  to  see 
her  about  it."  I  soon  returned  with  the  intel- 
ligence that  my  mother  had  given  her  consent, 
and  when  we  parted  at  the  gate  we  were  both 
in  a  state  of  high  good  humor  and  expectancy. 

At  the  dinner  table  that  evening,  after  we 
had  finished  eating,  father  remarked, — "Annie, 
do  you  remember  Mr.  Mann,  our  customer  of 
Champaign,  Illinois?" 

"Yes,  John,  the  man  who  sent  us  the  fine 
strawberries." 

"I  received  a  letter  from  him  today,"  father 
continued,  "in  which  he  tells  me  of  a  fine,  little 
farm  near  town  that  can  be  bought  for  four 
thousand  dollars,  cash,  which  he  thinks  a  bar- 
gain. When  he  was  in  our  store  in  the  spring 
I  expressed  a  wish  to  own  a  farm,  which  doubt- 
less is  the  reason  he  wrote  me  about  this  one. 
I  have  been  thinking  seriously  about  it  all  day, 
and  believe  it  worth  investigating." 

"Perhaps  you  had  better  go  to  see  it  at  once," 


22  RAY    BURTON. 

mother  replied,  "for  the  trip  will  do  you  good 
even  if  you  fail  to  make  a  deal." 

After  some  further  talk  about  the  matter, 
father  concluded  to  go  to  see  the  farm,  and  the 
following  morning  took  an  early  leave  of  us,  to 
be  gone  two  or  three  days.  This  new  field  that 
had  just  been  opened  up  to  my  imagination  was 
almost  boundless  in  resources.  I  found  my 
mind  carrying  me  on  excursions  to  the  fields 
and  wood  for  wild  flowers  and  berries;  I  had 
been  to  the  brook  and  caught  baskets  of  fish, 
such,  perhaps,  as  never  had  been  seen  in  any 
streamlet  in  the  state;  and  with  my  big  dog,  I 
had  been  to  the  meadows  and  captured  prairie 
dogs,  that  had,  in  reality,  retired  far  beyond  the 
Mississippi  river  long  years  ago.  Oh,  what  a 
wonderful  world  this  would  be  if  the  anticipa- 
tions of  youth  were  ever  realized! 

So  absorbed  was  I  in  thoughts  of  farm  life, 
that,  had  mother  not  reminded  me,  I  would 
have  forgotten  to  prepare  for  Arthur's  party. 
When  ready  to  go,  she  called  me  to  her  side  and 
said, — "Ray,  I  am  in  doubt  whether  I  used  good 
judgment  in  granting  you  permission  to  go  to 
this  party.  Before  very  long  you  will  be  twelve 
years  old,  and  by  accepting  this  invitation  we 
make  it  necessary  to  give  a  party  to  your  friends, 


KAV    BURTON.  23 

if  we  are  to  keep  pace  with  them.  Mr.  Gray  is 
an  alderman,  considered  wealthy,  and  it  would  be 
hard  for  us  to  give  you  such  an  entertainment 
for  your  friends  as  he  and  Mrs.  Gray  can  give 
to  Arthur  and  Florence.  Society  draws  lines, 
my  boy,  beyond  which  people  of  limited  means 
can  not  go,  it  matters  not  how  respectable  they 
may  be.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  Grays  have  en- 
tered that  exclusive  circle,  or  whether  they  are 
in  society  at  all,  but  if  they  should  be,  it  might 
be  better  for  you  to  be  under  no  obligations." 

"Why,  mother,  Arthur  and  I  just  talk  of  our 
sports  and  have  fun  together." 

"Yes,  son,  you  and  Arthur,  no  doubt,  will 
always  be  good  friends,  and  perhaps  neither 
will  ever  be  much  affected  by  the  set  rules  of 
the  social  world.  I  wish  you  a  pleasant  after-_ 
noon,  Ray,  and  now  it  is  time  to  go." 

After  a  parting  kiss  I  hurried  away.  My 
mind  was  full  and  I  had  to  check  my  pace  to 
allow  time  enough  to  compose  myself.  I  knew 
in  my  heart  that  one  of  the  anticipated  pleasures 
of  the  afternoon  was  to  see  Florence.  I  was 
overflowing,  too,  with  news  to  tell  Arthur  about 
the  possibilities  of  farm  life,  although  I  had 
been  told  to  tell  no  one  about  father's  business 
trip.     My  thoughts  would,  in  spite  of  me,  revert 


24  RAY    BURTON. 

to  what  mother  told  me  just  before  I  left  her 
side.  I  could  not  refrain  from  an  impatient 
stamp  on  the  walk,  when  I  thought  of  fatheras 
compared  with  Mr.  Gray.  I  knew  he  was  just 
as  intelligent,  and  would  be  just  as  good  an 
alderman,  if  he  were  in  the  position.  (How  lit- 
tle I,  a  boy,  knew  of  an  alderman's  duties,  and 
what  was  required  to  make  a  successful  one.) 
It  seemed  to  me,  too,  that  mother  was  better 
informed,  if  any  difference,  than  Mrs.  Gray  ap- 
peared to  be;  and  I  could  not  bring  myself  to 
look  with  any  allowance  upon  society,  if  its 
mission  were  to  compel  the  observance  of  rules 
that  would  separate  people  who  were  otherwise 
on  visiting  terms. 

The  residence  of  Mr.  George  Gray  bore  a 
comfortable  appearance.  There  was  a  liberal 
stretch  of  lawn  in  front  and  on  the  east  side  of 
the  house,  and  it,  like  everything  else  about  the 
premises,  was  kept  in  perfect  condition.  The 
house  was  somewhat  old-fashioned,  with  large 
rooms  and  wide  halls,  but  splendid  looking 
withal,  and  doubtless  was,  when  new,  one  of 
the  best  in  the  neighborhood.  It  stood  on 
Monroe  street  near  Aberdeen. 

As  I  approached  the  place  I  saw  Arthur  in 
the  front  yard,  who  came  to  meet  me,  and,  as  I 


RAY    BURTON.  '  2$ 

was  the  first  arrival,  he  took  me  to  see  his  new 
croquet  set.  "You  see,  Ray,"  he  said,  "with  the 
new  set  and  the  old  one,  and  the  swing,  we  can 
accommodate  about  all  the  boys  and  girls  who 
will  be  here." 

.We  chatted  incessantly,  as  we  always  did 
when  together,  and  before  the  others  came  I 
had  told  him  a  great  deal  about  what  might  take 
place  sometime,  and  that,  in  case  it  did  happen, 
I  was  to  have  a  pony  and  saddle,  a  dog,  and 
perhaps  a  gun.  Arthur  seemed  delighted,  and 
said  he  would  come  to  visit  me  and  we  would 
have  a  grand  time  riding  on  horse-back,  hunt- 
ing and  fishing.  Just  then  Mr.  Gray  came  by 
and  stopped  to  address  a  few  pleasant  remarks 
to  us,  before  passing  on  to  the  street.  He  was 
a  man  above  medium  height,  rather  portly,  with 
short  hair  and  cropped  beard,  and  a  restless 
eye,  that  seemed  prone  to  pass  rapidly  from 
one  object  to  another  in  short,  erratic  glances. 
The  property  adjoining  belonged  to  him,  and  I 
observed  that  he  walked  back  and  forth  on  the 
pavement  in  front  of  it,  seemingly  noticing  the 
effect  of  a  fresh  coat  of  paint  that  had  been 
given  the  cornice  and  casements  of  the  house* 
with  that  kind  of  an  admiring  look  that  sug- 
gested the  rubbing  together  of  hands,  which  he 


26  RAY    BURTON. 

was  doing  industriously  all  the  while.  Human 
nature  was  a  sealed  book  to  me  then,  but  later 
I  learned  that  Mr,  Gray  belonged  to  that  class 
of  men,  who,  when  they  are  pleased  with  results, 
facetiously  pat  themselves  with  a  good-for-you- 
old-boy  kind  of  a  pat,  that  is  dearer  to  them 
than  caresses  from  loving  hands. 

The  party  passed  off  pleasantly,  and  in  the 
evening,  after  the  boys  and  girls  had  gone, 
Arthur  accompanied  me  part  way  home,  when 
we  talked  of  school,  which  was  soon  to  reopen. 

Early  the  following  evening  father  returned 
from  Champaign,  and  after  dinner  gave  us  a 
description  of  his  trip.  It  was  at  that  fruitful 
time  of  the  year  when  mother  earth  pays  and 
delivers  all  that  she  promised  in  the  flowery 
time  of  May.  With  orchard  boughs  bending 
with  ripening  fruit,  barns  filled  with  the  choic- 
est hay  and  grain,  fields  of  waving  corn  that 
was  nearing  maturity,  and  pasture  lands  teeming 
with  well-fed  stock,  what  wonder  that  father 
was  completely  captivated  by  the  scenes;  and, 
as  his  thoughts  went  back  to  his  boyhood  days 
among  the  Pennsylvania  hills,  his  heart  longed 
again  for  that  perfect  freedom  that  can  be 
found  only  in  the  country. 

The  farm  that  he  had  gone  to  see  lay  just 


RAY    BURTON.  27 

without  the  corporate  limits  of  Champaign,  and 
was  perfect  in  almost  every  particular.  After 
having  told  us,  in  his  descriptive  way,  how  he 
was  impressed,  he  concluded  by  saying  that  he 
had  taken  preliminary  steps  toward  the  pur- 
chase of  the  farm,  and  if  mother  were  willing 
he  would  proceed  at  once  to  dispose  of  his 
business  interests  and  some  vacant  lots  on 
Western  avenue,  which  he  thought  would  bring 
more  than  the  required  amount.  Mother 
agreed  to  the  plan,  and  the  days  that  followed 
were  full  of  preparations  and  hope. 


CHAPTER  III. 


IT  was  in  early  October  when  father,  having 
disposed  of  his  business  interests  and  some 
vacant  lots  to  Mr.  Wentworth  for  a  considera- 
tion that  exceeded,  to  some  extent,  the  amount 
needed  in  the  deal,  announced  his  intention  of 
going  to  Champaign  soon  to  close  the  trade  for 
the  farm.  Into  the  days  just  preceding  this  he 
had  crowded  more  work  than  was  his  custom, 
but  never  had  we  seen  him  more  cheerful  and 
happy.  In  those  days  I  was  inflated  with  a 
great  deal  of  enthusiasm,  and  told  swelling 
stories  of  the  kind  of  pony  I  expected  to  have, 
the  carriage  we  were  going  to  buy,  and  that  I 
was  to  enter  the  university,  which  is  an  import- 
ant feature  of  that  place,  as  soon  as  I  could  pass 
exammation. 

On  the  Saturday  before  the  Monday  that 
father  had  set  for  leaving,  I  accompanied  him 
to  Mr.  Wentworth's  store  where  he  had  some 
unfinished  business  matters  that  would  require 
one  or  two  hour's  attention,  and  while  he  was 


RAY    BURTON.  29 

thus  engaged,  I  went  to  visit  my  old  friend,  Mr. 
Cay.  As  I  drew  near  his  quaint  shop  I  saw, 
standing  by  his  side,  a  boy  who  delivered  papers 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  who  had  formerly  sold 
them  near  the  bridge,  where  I  had  first  made 
his  acquaintance  more  than  two  years  before. 
,His  name  was  Frank,  which  was  rather  appro- 
priate in  his  case,  for  a  more  honest,  open  coun- 
tenance I  had  never  seen  among  all  my  associ- 
ates, and  for  this  reason,  doubtless,  I  became 
attached  to  him.  After  entering  and  passing 
friendly  greetings  Mr.  Cay  said, — "Ray,  me 
lad,  Frank  'as  just  told  me  'ow  your  father  'as 
gone  and  sold  hout  to  Mr.  Wentworth  and  is 
goin'  off  to  the  country  a  farmin'."  I  replied 
that  it  was  so,  and  entered  into  a  lengthy 
description  of  our  arrangements,  and  had  not 
exhausted  the  subject  when  father  looked  in 
and  said  he  was  ready  to  return  home.  Mr. 
Cay  asked  him  some  questions  about  his  change 
of  business,  and  while  they  were  talking  Frank 
said  to  me, — "You  will  come  down  here  again 
before  you  leave  the  cit}^  won't  you,  Ray?" 
"  Yes,  Frank,"  I  replied,  "  more  than  once,  per- 
haps." As  we  went  away,  and  I  recalled  the 
look  that  accompanied  Frank's  question,  I 
could  not  suppress  the  feeling  that  fate,  in  some 


30  KAV    BURTON. 

way,  was  going  to  retain  us  in  the  city,  and 
when  I  thought  of  all  my  playfellows  and 
friends,  I  almost  wished  in  my  heart  that  it 
could  be  so. 

On  Monday  as  we  sat  at  luncheon,  father  re- 
marked-'-"General  Logan  is  to  address  the  Grand 
Army  posts  of  the  city  at  Central  Music  Hall 
tonight,  and  I  think  I  can  attend  the  meeting 
and  then  have  time  to  reach  the  depot  for  the 
eleven  o'clock  train  for  Champaign," 

"Why,  yes,  I  should  think  you  could,  as  the 
depot  is  so  near  there,"  mother  replied. 

My  father  had  been  in  the  service  during  the 
civil  war,  and  no  one  knows  better  than  an  old 
veteran,  how  easy  it  was  to  shape  business  so 
one  could  attend  a  meeting  where  this  loved 
comrade  and  commander  was  to  speak.  I  had 
gone  with  father  to  an  evening  meeting,  on  Mar- 
ket street  near  Washington,  in  the  summer,  at 
which  time  Generals  Logan  and  Banks,  Hons. 
S.  M.  Cullom,  Clark  E.  Carr  and  Chauncey  L 
Filley,  were  the  speakers.  I  asked  him  if  I 
might  not  go  with  him  to  Central  Music  Hall, 
but,  as  he  was  not  coming  home,  he  thought  I 
had  better  not  go.  Having  numerous  business 
matters  to  adjust  before  leaving  the  city,  father 
took  an  early  leave  of  us  that  afternoon,  and  as 


RAY    BURTON.  3 1 

he  boarded  an  Adams  street  car,  he  lookedback 
to  where  mother  and  I  were  standing  and  waved 
an  affectionate  farewell. 

The  next  morning  as  Arthur  and  I  stood  at 
the  corner  of  Monroe  and  Morgan  streets,  where 
we  usually  met  before  going  to  school,  we  saw 
Mr.  Cay  coming  toward  us  from  Madison  street, 
in  what  seemed  an  unusually  fast  pace  for  him. 
When  he  came  up  to  us  he  said, — "Ray,  is  your 
father  to  'ome?"  "No,  Mr.  Cay,"  I  replied,  "he 
left  the  city  yesterday  to  be  goneseveral  days." 
After  a  short  pause  he  continued, — "Is  the  Mis- 
ses at  'ome?"  I  answered  mother  was  at  home, 
and  if  he  wished  to  see  her  I  would  go  with  him 
to  the  house,  which  was  near  by.  After  asking 
Arthur  to  wait  a  few  minutes  for  me,  I  went 
with  Mr.  Cay  to  see  mother  on  an  errand,  the 
purport  of  which  I  knew  nothing  and  about 
which  I  was  beginning  to  feel  inquisitive.  On 
being  shown  into  the  house  and  introduced,  he 
refused  the  offered  chair,  and  said, — "Mrs.  Bur- 
ton, be  you  sure  that  Mr.  Burton  'as  left  the 
city?" 

"It  was  his  purpose  to  leave  last  night,"  said 
mother,  "but  why  do  you  ask,  Mr.  Cay?" 

"The  truth  his,"  replied  he,  "a  man  was 
found  in  the  river  near  my  shop   this  mornin' 


32  RAY    BURTON. 

as  looked  like  Mr.  Burton,  but—."  Mother  had 
fallen  to  the  floor  in  a  swoon.  The  old  man, 
after  asking  me  to  bring  a  bowl  of  water,  told 
me  to  bring  the  nearest  physician.  I  hurried 
to  do  his  bidding,  but  in  my  bewilderment  I 
felt  like  one  going  about  in  a  dream.  I  found 
Arthur  waiting  on  the  corner  and  told  him 
mother  had  fainted  and  he  kindly  volunteered 
to  go  for  a  physician.  As  I  was  returning  to 
the  house  I  looked  south  and  saw  Mrs.  Went- 
worth,  who  had  been  an  intimate  friend  of  my 
mother  ever  since  Mr.  Wentworth  and  my 
father  entered  into  partnership,  coming  as  fast 
as  she  could  walk.  When  she  came  up  to  me, 
almost  out  of  breath,  I  briefly  related  what  had 
happened,  and  she  said,  kindly  putting  her 
hands  on  both  sides  of  my  face  and  looking 
down  into  my  eyes,  while  tears  were  standing 
in  her  own, — "You  will  have  to  be  a  brave  little 
man  now  for  it  is  too  true,  your  father  is 
drowned."  She  hastened  into  the  house  to  see 
mother,  and  I  sank  down  upon  the  steps  in  a 
completely  dazed  condition.  The  houses,  trees, 
church  spire  and  all  familiar  objects  around  me 
had  taken  on  a  strange  appearance.  Even 
Arthur  and  the  physician,  who  were  now  ap- 
proaching, [looked    like   persons   whom  I  had 


RAY    BURTON,  33 

never  seen.  I  motioned  the  doctor  toward  the 
door,  and,  taking  Arthur's  hands  in  mine,  gave 
vent  to  the  pent  up  feelings  within  me  in  a 
storm  of  sobs  and  tears.  In  a  short  time  I  was 
able  to  tell  him  what  had  befallen  father.  We 
then  went  into  the  house,  where  we  found 
mother,  who  had  been  restored  to  conscious- 
ness, lying  on  the  sofa.  Her  face  was  pale  and 
its  expression  painfully  sad;  and,  in  looking 
back  over  the  years  of  her  widowhood,  how 
well  do  I  know  that  that  look  was  as  abiding 
with  her  as  if  it  had  been  a  part  of  herself,  and 
was  the  silent  exponent  of  a  broken  heart. 

Mrs.  Wentworth,  whose  home  was  near  us  on 
Sangamon  street  had  been  selected  to  break 
the  sad  news  to  my  mother,  but  Mr.  Cay's 
anxiety  had  caused  him  to  outrun  her  in  the 
race  to  our  home,  yet  the  shock  to  her  was  no 
worse,  perhaps  than  it  would  have  been  had  the 
intelligence  come  in  a  less  abrupt  manner.  In 
deference  to  her  wish,  the  funeral  was  to  take 
place  from  the  house,  and  the  Grand  Army 
post  having  the  matter  in  charge,  arranged  to 
have  the  remains  brought  as  soon  after  the  in- 
quest as  possible. 

There  were  no  startling  facts  brought  to  light 
by  the  coroner  and  his  jury.     Only  one  person 


34  RAY   BURTON. 

Hulda  Jensen,  had  seen  enough  to  be  consid- 
ered an  eye  witness;  and  as  the  drowning  took 
placebetween  the  hours  of  six  and  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  the  darkness  prevented  her  from 
seeing  very  much,  and  in  truth  she  had  been 
led  to  make  her  report  to  the  police  more  from 
what  she  heard  than  from  anything  she  actually 
saw.  In  substance  her  statement  was  that  she 
heard  a  splash  in  the  river,  followed  by  a  sound 
as  if  someone  were  struggling  in  the  water,  then 
all  was  quiet.  Immediately  after  the  splash, 
however,  she  thought  she  heard  footsteps  of 
persons  running  north  on  the  wharf.  The  fact 
that  father  had  on  that  afternoon  drawn  four 
thousand  dollars  from  the  bank,  and  that  all  his 
pockets  were  turned  inside  out  and  everything 
of  value  taken,  led  the  jury  to  come  hastily  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  had  been  robbed,  and 
had,  while  defending  himself,  either  accident- 
ally fallen  into  the  river,  or  had  been  thrown  in 
by  the  robbers,  and  had  come  to  his  death  by 
drowning. 

Here  was  a  case  for  the  police  to  take  up  and 
ferret  out.  Between  the  hours  of  six  and  seven 
in  the  evening,  when  so  many  people  must  have 
been  crossing  the  bridge,  why  had  no  one  but 
this  one  woman  heard  the  solash  in  the  river? 


RAY    BURTON.  35 

Why  had  there  been  no  drowning  cry  from  the 
victim?  At  this  day,  no  doubt,  somewhere  filed 
away  among  old  records  that  had  been  in  use 
then,  is  a  description  of  this  case,  which  has 
never  had  written  beside  it  one  word  that  would 
tend  to  solve  the  mystery. 

When  father's  remains  were  brought  home, 
it  seemed  to  bring  mother's  sorrow  so  near  to 
her  that  it  was  difficult  for  her  to  bear  up  under 
it.  Never  had  I  witnessed  such  bitter  anguish 
before;  and,  out  of  sympathy,  perhaps,  more 
than  any  realization  of  my  own  loss  and  grief, 
I  wept  with  her.  She  was  so  ill  of  nervous 
prostration  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  go 
to  the  cemetery.  There  were  no  near  relatives 
of  either  my  father  or  mother  residing"  in  the 
city,  but  a  sister  of  my  father,  whom  he  had  not 
seen  since  he  came  west,  lived  in  Pennsylvania, 
although  no'bne  seemed  to  know  exactly  where; 
so,  in  the'  funeral  procession  that  followed  all 
that  remained  of  John  Burton  to  its  resting- 
place  in  Rose  Hill,  that  October  afternoon, 
there  was  but  one  near  of  kin — his  son;  but  of 
kind  friends,  quite  a  concourse. 

A  funeral  procession,  even  to  the  casual 
observer,  is  always  a  solemn  spectacle,  but  when 
you  are  numbered    with   the  mourners,  borne 


36  RAY    BURTON. 

slowly  on  by  its  measured  movement,  with 
ample  time  for  reflection  before  it  arrives  at  the 
cemetery, the  solemnity  becomes  almoststifling, 
and  your  whole  nature  asserts  a  preference  for 
a  burial  in  the  wildwood,  where  formality  and 
crape  are  not  known. 

It  was  many  days  after  the  burial  of  my 
father  before  mother  was  strong  enough  to 
leave  her  bed,  and  much  longer  still  before  the 
physician  would  permit  her  to  go  out  of  the 
house.  Mrs.  Wentworth,  Miss  Baldwin,  Mrs. 
Gray  and  many  other  friends  and  neighbors 
called  to  cheer  her  and  help,  if  possible,  to 
dispel  the  gloom  that  had  settled  so  densely 
about  our  fireside;  but  there  was  a  vacancy  that 
could  not  be  filled,  a  loneliness  and  sadness  of 
heart  that  friendly  sympathy  could  not  reach. 

There  are  no  words  with  which  to  describe 
the  sorrow  attending  bereavement.  It  can  only 
be  felt,  and  once  deeply  felt,  its  blighting  fire, 
in  some  cases,  burns  within  the  troubled  breast 
throughout  life,  and,  like  a  daily  sacrificial 
flame,  consumes  all  earthly  desires,  until, 
apparently,  only  the  soul  remains.  Truly,  my 
mother's  cup  of  sorrow  was  a  full  measure,  but 
with  Christian  fortitude  she  looked  to  God  for 
strength  to  sustain  her  unto  the  end.     And  now 


RAY    BURTON.  37 

to  my  mind  there  can  come  no  more  beautiful 
thought  than  that  of  my  mother's  simple,  un- 
wavering-trust in  God. 

It  was  on  the  first  Sunday  after  mother's 
recovery  that  the  funeral  sermon  to  the  mem- 
ory of  my  father,  was  delivered  in  the  church 
where  he  had  so  long  been  an  attendant,  and  by 
the  minister  who  was  one  of  his  earliest 
acquaintances  and  friends  in  the  city.  The 
oration  contained  no  extravagant  panegyrics, 
but  dealt  with  the  everyday  doings  of  a  busy 
life  that  had  ever  been  guided  by  love  and 
duty,  and  had,  for  the  good  of  his  family  and 
friends,  been  cut  off  many  years  too  soon. 

Miss  Baldwin  accompanied  us  home  from  the 
services  and  remained  that  night.  Her  pres- 
ence was  so  consoling  and  cheering  that  mother 
proposed  to  her  to  make  her  home  with  us, 
which  she  accepted  on  condition  that  she  be 
allowed  to  pay  the  same  amount  weekly  that 
she  paid  elsewhere,  for  board.  She  belonged 
to  that  large  army  of  people,  among  whom  are 
some  of  Chicago's  most  energetic  workers, 
called  boarders,  and  she  was  not  slow  to  accept 
a  home  with  a  woman  for  whom  she  was  begin- 
ning to  feel  a  sister's  love,  and  between  whom 
and  herself  there  existed  such  an  unrestrained 


38  RAY    BURTON. 

and  cordial  relationship.  Her  coming  into  our 
home  was  a  blessing  in  more  ways  than  one,  and 
a  home  that  had  suffered  such  a  loss  as  ours, 
surely  deserved  something  that  could  be  classed 
with  the  good  happenings  in  life.  To  her  I 
owe  what  rudimental  knowledge  I  received  of 
the  higher  common  school  branches  and  a  few 
of  the  sciences.  In  the  years  that  followed 
many  were  the  evenings  that  she  willingly  post- 
poned any  other  employment  in  order  to  help 
me  over  the  rough  places,  in  my  efforts  to 
master  some  new  subject.  This  kindness  of 
her  was  fully  appreciated  by  my  mother  as  well 
as  myself,  and  we  never  lost  an  opportunity  to 
repay  her  in  like  deeds. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


MY  father  died  intestate,  and,  save  one  va- 
cant lot  on  which  there  was  a  slight  in- 
cumbrance, he  had  transferred  all  his  real  es- 
tate and  store  belongings,  to  Mr.  Wentworth 
for  a  sum  of  money,  almost  the  entire  amount 
of  which  he  had  had  with  him  on  that  fatal  eve- 
ning of  the  robbery  and  his  death.  Our  home, 
with  its  old-fashioned  furniture,  was  mother's 
inheritance  from  her  parents,  and  of  course  did 
not  figure  in  the  adjustment  of  my  father's 
property,  it  being  in  her  name.  If  she  had  pos- 
sessed any  business  knowledge  or  experience 
she  could  have  settled  everything  to  the  satis- 
faction of  all  parties  interested,  at  a  very  small 
outlay, — and  the  two  or  three  hundred  dollars 
that  must  have  remained  after  the  funeral  ex- 
penses were  paid,  would  have  been  hers  to  use, 
at  that  time  when  so  small  a  sum  would  have 
represented  so  much  to  us.  On  the  recom- 
mendation of  Mr.  Gray,  however,  a  young  law- 
yer, Mr.  Glynn,  was  selected  to  make  final  set- 


40  RAY    BURTON. 

tlement  of  the  affairs  of  the  late  John  Burton; 
and  the  greater  portion  of  that  remnant  of 
money,  that  ought  to  have  gone  to  the  widow 
must  have  been  added  to  a  lawyer's  fee  for  a 
few  hour's  work;  as  there  was  given  to  mother, 
after  everything  was  settled,  the  small  sum  of 
thirty-two  dollars.  She  was  not  disposed  to 
complain,  and  it  was  not  until  a  few  years  later 
that  she  told  me  the  particulars  as  she  remem- 
bered them;  and,  by  reference  to  my  father's 
old  account  book,  I  was  confronted  with  the 
fact  that  along  with  the  knowledge  of  my  father 
having  been  robbed  and  perhaps  murdered  by 
villains,  stood  the  unwelcome  revelation  that 
my  mother  had  been  robbed,  in  a  small  way,  by 
friends.  As  a  boy  I  had  been  a  close  observer 
of  persons,  but  at  this  time,  which  is  somewhat 
in  advance  of  my  narratiye,  I  began  a  careful 
study  of  the  human  animal  in  all  his  moods,  as 
I  went  about  my  daily  duties;  and  with  the 
passing  of  the  years  the  interest  has  in  no  wise 
diminished. 

It  is  surprising,  too,  how  much  can  be  learned 
of  the  tendencies  of  human  nature,  by  placing 
one's  conscience  as  guard  over  his  own  actions, 
and  noting  the  results.  For  instance,  in  ana- 
lyzing  the   principle  that  would   allow  a  con- 


RAY    BURTON.  4I 

ductor  to  pass  without  paying  my  fare,  which  I 
had  often  done  without  thinking  it  wrong,  I 
found  that  it  did  not  need  to  be  practiced  to 
any  considerable  extent  until  it  became  a  near 
relative  to  the  principle  that  actuates  a  man  in 
driving  a  sharp  bargain  or  permits  an  adminis- 
trator to  defraud  a  widow.  Thus,  is  the  human 
heart  a  strange  battle  ground,  on  which  is  waged 
an  eternal  strife  for  mastery  between  the  good 
and  the  bad,  and  the  result  depends  largely 
upon  one's  condition,  surroundings  and  am- 
bitions. 

Mr.  Archie  Glynn  was  of  a  well-to-do  family 
who  resided  on  Washington  boulevard,  and 
Mr.  Gray,  in  describing  the  young  man's  bril- 
liant record  in  college  and  his  bright  prospects 
as  an  attorney,  could  not  refrain  from  touching 
on  the  fact  that  George  Glynn,  Esq.,  his  grand- 
fclther,  had  been  at  one  time  officially  con- 
nected with  the  Bank  of  England,  consequently 
there  clung  to  the  old  English  name  a  hint  of 
aristocracy,  to  which  he  attached  a  great  deal 
of  importance.  This  weakness  is  a  matter  of 
little  surprise,  however,  when  we  think  of  the 
great  number  of  our  countrymen,  who,  having 
reached  the  very  pinnacle  of  fame  and  afflu- 
ence, travel  abroad  with  their  families,  and  in 


42  RAV    BURTON. 

many  instances  marry  their  daughters  to  the 
withered,  dwarfed  and  supernumerary  scions  of 
gentility,  the  latter  condescending  to  tolerate 
their  American  alliances  for  the  wealth  they 
bring  them,  and  who  in  turn  are  endured  on  ac- 
count of  the  sanguinary  blue  that  courses 
through  their  refined  beings.  Hence,  Mr,  Gray 
must  not  be  censtired  too  severely  for  this 
peculiarity,  for  few  there  be  who  have  not,  to 
some  extent  at  least,  this  admiration  for  any- 
thing high-sounding. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  qualifications 
of  young  Glynn  to  entitle  him  to  the  confi- 
dence of  Mr.  Gray's  friends,  certain  it  was  that 
youth  had  so  lingered  in  the  lap  of  manhood 
with  him,  that  it  really  sounded  ridiculous  to 
hear  him  addressed  as  mister.  In  years  he  was 
somewhat  past  his  majority,  but  in  looks 
scarcely  eighteen;  and  each  individual  hair  of 
his  incipient  mustache  showed  that  careful 
training,  which  was  to  it  what  the  young  man's 
college  training  must  have  been  to  him — a 
grand  encouragement  to  future  possibilities. 
He  dressed  in  the  very  latest  style,  and  his 
clothes  fitted  him  with  such  stern  exactness 
that  they  made  him  look  painfully  elegant.  I 
chanced  to  be  at  home  the  last  time  he  came 


RAY    BURTON,  43 

on  business  connected  with  the  settlement,  and 
among  the  pleasant  remarks  addressed  to  me, 
while  he  waited  for  mother,  was  this, — "The 
halcyon  days  of  youth  are  fraught  with  more 
sunshine  and  gladness  than  are  any  others  of  a 
whole  life-time."  The  observation  would  have 
been  more  appropriate,  perhaps,  had  it  been 
uttered  by  an  older  person,  as  it  seemed  to  im- 
ply that  the  speaker  had  himself  passed  far 
down  the  western  declivity  of  life.  I  did  not 
know  that  halcyon  in  any  way  meant  peaceful, 
nor  was  I  sufficiently  posted  in  logic  to  be  able 
to  draw  any  comparison  between  my  youthful 
state  and  the  career  of  a  young  kingfisher;  and 
being  uncertain  of  his  meaning,  I  said  "Yes, 
sir,"  in  such  an  undecided  tone  that  he  cast  a 
hasty,  half-pitying  glance  toward  me  which 
quite  humiliated  me. 

Although  he  professed  a  warm  friendship  for 
Miss  Baldwin,  both  being  members  of  the  same 
church,  yet  he  never  took  occasion  to  call  at 
our  home  after  that  last  business  visit,  and  I 
seldom  saw  him  except  when  riding  his  father's 
spirited  horse  on  the  boulevard,  which  he  could 
perform  with  the  cleverness  of  .a' jockey. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  long,  cold  winter  of  1 880-81  had  drawn 
to  a  close,  and  the  mild  spring's  sun  and 
shower  were  wooing  back  to  life  the  trees,  flow- 
ers and  lawn.  It  was  at  this  period  of  my  life, 
when  youthful  hopes  and  aspirations  ought  to 
have  begun  to  kindle  a  flame  within  my  bosom 
tending  toward  some  high  destiny,  that  I  was 
brought  face-to-face  with  a  problem,  that  has 
confronted  many  another  youth  in  this  great 
city  who  was  no  older  nor  better  equipped  to 
cope  with  it  than  was  I  —  the  problem  of  an  hon- 
est living  and  how  to  secure  it,  independent  of 
charity. 

Mother  had  received  a  thousand  dollars  from 
the  insurance  company  in  which  father  had  car- 
ried a  policy  for  that  amount,  soon  after  his 
death;  but  the  expenses  of  the  winter  had  made 
alarming  inroads  into  it,  and  I  could  plainly  see 
that  it  was  a  source  of  much  anxiety  to  her,  for 
I  knew  it  had  been  her  purpose  to  keep  me  in 
school,  and  now  ways  and  means  was  a  subject 


RAY    BURTON.  45 

that  demanded  attention  and  could  not  be  put 
off  longer. 

Twice  in  the  winter,  after  Mr.  Woodrow'scoal 
wagon  had  been  to  our  shed  and  unloaded  coal, 
had  the  driver  gone  away  without  leaving  bills, 
and  as  many  times  had  little  Grace  Wentworth, 
who  was  a  great  favorite  in  our  home,  come  to 
visit  us  and  before  leaving  slipped,  each  time, 
a  receipted  bill  into  my  mother's  hand,  folded 
so  carefully  that  Grace  was  out  of  hearing  be- 
fore mother  knew  what  the  paper  was.  We 
tried  to  accept  these  tokens  of  generosity  in  the 
spirit  that  prompted  the  giver,  for  it  seemed  it 
was  more  from  a  kindly  feeling  Mr.  Wentworth 
had  for  the  family  of  his  old  partner  and  friend 
than  from  a  disposition  to  be  charitable,  and  it 
appeared  to  be  his  wish  to  have  us  accept  it  as 
something  he  owed  us  rather  than  as  a  gift.  We 
could  not,  under  the  circumstances,  refuse  this 
kindness,  but  it  made  mother  feel  all  the  more 
keenly  the  need  of  an  income  at  least  equal  to 
oiir  expenses,  which  in  truth  was  the  only  thing 
that  would  enable  her  to  meet  her  old  friends 
on  equal  terms  as  of  former  days.  I  had  ap- 
pealed to  her  on  several  occasions  to  allow  me 
to  secure  work,  which  earnings  in  connection 
with  the  amount   Miss   Baldwin  paid  weekly, 


46  RAY    BURTON. 

would  enable  us  to  meet  all  bills  without  draw- 
ing further  on  the  insurance  money,  which  could 
be  held  in  reserve  to  use  in  any  case  of  emer- 
gency. 

One  Saturday  after  we  had  had  a  talk  on  ex- 
penses, and  mother  had  partially  given  her  con- 
sent for  me  to  secure  work  after  school  closed, 
I  walked  out  upon  the  street,  heedless  which 
way  I  took  and  thinking  only  of  the  best  way 
to  proceed.  I  seated  myself  on  the  steps  of  the 
Centenary  church  and  soon  was  lost  to  all  ac- 
tivity about  me,  in  my  mental  pictures  of  my- 
self doing  duty  in  one  or  another  of  the  various 
positions  suitable  to  a  boy  of  my  age.  I  had 
not  been  sitting  very  long  thus  wrapped  in  my 
own  thoughts  until  suddenly  I  felt  warm  hands 
pressing  my  ears  and  holding  my  head  so  I 
could  not  turn  to  see  to  whom  they  belonged. 
Presently  a  voice  as  musical  as  the  hands  were 
soft  asked  me  to  guess  who  it  was, — an  easy  task 
for  one  who  had  a  boyish  admiration  for  the  girl 
and  knew  her  voice  almost  as  well  as  that  of  his 
mother. 

"How  could  you  walk  so  quietly  on  these 
stone  steps,  Florence?"  said  I. 

"Why,  Ray,  when  you  get  into  one  of  your 
thoughtful  moods,  it  would  require  the  tread  of 


RAY    BURTON.  4/ 

an  elephant  to  attract  your  attention,"  she  an- 
swered, stepping  out  on  the  pavement  in  front 
of  me,  and  giving  me  a  mischievous  look  that 
sent  little,  piercing  darts  into  my  already  van- 
quished heart.  I  longed  for  someone  with  whom 
to  talk  about  my  plans,  and  no  one  would  have 
pleased  me  better  than  Arthur,  but  out  of  a  false, 
foolish  pride,  I  had  made  up  my  mind  not  to 
tell  him  anything  about  our  circumstances;  so, 
when  Florence  asked  me  to  play  croquet  with 
them,  I  excused  myself  for  the  time,  much 
against  my  wish,  promising,  however,  to  call  in 
the  evening  for  that  purpose. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  Mr.  Cay  might  be 
able  to  help  me  in  someway,  and  acting  on  the 
thought,  I  went  directly  home  to  get  permis- 
sion to  go  to  •  see  him  at  once,  which  was 
granted,  and  I  hastened  away  feeling  that  my 
mission  was  an  important  one.  It  was  near  one 
o'clock  when  I  approached  the  shop,  and  Mr. 
Cay  was  sitting  on  his  work -bench  reading  a 
paper,  and  near  him  lay  his  little  dog,  Trip,  ap- 
parently asleep.  Before  I  was  observed,  Mr. 
Cay  laid  aside  his  paper,  removed  his  glasses 
and  yawned  quite  audibly,  doubtless  a  prepara- 
tory to  resuming  work.  Trip,  out  of  sympathy, 
yawned,  too,  a  most  lusty  yawn  and  closed  his 


48  RAY    BURTON, 

little,  red  mouth  with  a  peculiar  snap  that 
seemed  to  indicate  that  he,  too,  had  shaken  off 
the  languor  of  the  hour  and  would  look  about 
him  for  something  useful  to  do.  His  first  work 
was  to  discover  me  just  outside  the  door  and  to 
bark  at  me  in  a  very  threatening  manner.  After 
seeing  that  I  was  an  acquaintance,  he  ran  up  to 
me,  displaying  all  the  signs  of  friendship  char- 
acteristic of  the  dog,  and  in  actions  if  not  in 
words,  bade  me  welcome.  Mr.  Cay  greeted  me 
in  his  jovial  way,  and  began  tying  on  his  shop 
apron.  He  then  partly  turned  over  an  old  row- 
boat  that  lay  against  the  wall,  from  underneath 
which  ran  a  large,  gray  rat.  It  did  not  run  far, 
however,  until  Trip  had  it  between  his  jaws 
shaking  it  vigorously.  After  killing  it  he 
brought  it  to  his  master  for  approval.  Mr.  Cay 
stooped  "down  and  patted  him  gently  on  the 
head,  and  said  to  me, — "That  'ere  may  be  a  rat 
with  a  'istory.  Many  of  these  large  uns  'as 
crossed  the  hocean  in  wessels."  Then  he  went 
into  a  lengthy  explanation  of  the  habits  of  the 
rat  and  its  disposition  to  steal  on  board  vessels 
and  hide  in  the  cargo,  and  in  that  way  travel 
from  one  continent  to  another. 

It  was  so  interesting  to  me  that  I   forgot  for 
a  time  the  business  that  was  uppermost  in  my 


RAY    BURTON.  49 

mind  and  for  which  I  had  come  to  see  Mr.  Cay. 
He  was  then  called  away  from  his  work  for  a 
short  time,  and,  as  I  sat  awaiting  his  return,  I 
could  not  suppress  a  shudder,  as  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  mysterious  death  of  my  father, 
which  must  have  taken  place  very  near  this 
shop,  came  vividly  to  my  mind.  It  occurred  to 
me,  too,  as  I  peered  down  the  dark,  zigzag 
passageway  leading  to  the  south  side  of  the 
bridge,  that  a  more  favorable  spot  could  not 
have  been  found  in  the  deepest  solitudes  of  a 
wilderness  than  was  this  for  the  perpetration  of 
a  crime.  [And  at  this  time,  many  years  since, 
notwithstanding  the  bridge  turns  by  electricity 
and  the  elevated  trains  rumble  over  its  upper 
deck,  be  it  said  that  beneath  is  the  same  dense 
darkness.]  I  wondered  to  myself  what  could 
have  brought  my  father  to  this  place  that  even- 
ing, and  whether  something  or  someone  would 
ever  reveal  the  facts  connected  with  this 
tragedy.  Just  then  Mr.  Cay  returned  and  I  lost 
no  time  in  telling  him  of  our  circumstances  and 
what  I  wanted  to  do.  He  told  me  very  kindly 
that  he  knew  of  nothing  that  I  could  do,  but 
that  he  would  see  his  son-in-law,  who  was  con- 
nected with  the  Western  Union  service,  and 
probably  he  would  find  something  for  me  to  do 


50  RAY    BURTON. 

in  their  offices.  I  thanked  him  and  was  just 
taking  leave  when  a  tall,  rather  portly,  light 
haired  woman  hastened  by  and  up  the  stairway 
to  the  bridge.  I  observed  as  she  passed  that 
she  looked  back,  first  over  one  shoulder  then 
the  other,  as  if  to  assure  herself  that  no  one 
was  following.  I  asked  Mr.  Cay  if  he  knew 
her.  "  No,"  he  said,  "but  she  hoften  passes  'ere 
and  all's  seems  in  a  'uny," 

The  game  of  croquet  that  evening  seemed  to 
lack  spirit,  and  I  think  it  was  because  I  was 
withholding  my  confidence  from  my  best 
friend,  Arthur. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THROUGH  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Cay's  son- 
in-law, William  Bright,  I  was  given  employ- 
ment in  the  central  office  of  the  Western  Union 
telegraph  company  as  a  messenger.  On  the 
first  Monday  morning  in  June,  the  day  I  was  to 
report  for  duty,  I  issued  forth,  clad  in  a  bright, 
new  regulation  uniform,  with  my  lunch  box, 
also  of  the  regulation  pattern,  to  join  the  great 
army  of  bread  winners.  Everybody  was  rush- 
ing toward  the  down-town  district  with  all 
possible  haste,  prompted,  I  very  soon  learned, 
by  the  necessity  of  being  on  time  at  their 
respective  places  of  work.  All  this  was  new  to 
me,  as  I  had  never  before  been  much  on  the 
streets  at  so  early  an  hour.  It  appeared  to  me, 
as  I  hurried  along  Madison  street  with  the 
throng,  that  everybody  on  the  West  Side  had 
secured  jobs  the  same  time  I  had  and  were  in 
haste  to  get  to  them  lest  somebody  should  get 
there  ahead  of  them.  However,  I  soon  became 
accustomed  to  the  bustle,  and  up  to  the  present 


52  RAY    BURTON. 

time  I  have  been  mingling  with  the  early  morn- 
ing and  late  evening  crowds,  and  have  noticed 
little  change  in  that  restless  mass  of  humanity 
that  moves  cityward  in  the  morning  and  home- 
ward at  night,  save  that  each  year  the  throng- 
becomes  a  little  more  dense. 

Like  myself  many  people  carried  lunch,  and 
the  variety  of  receptacles  and  manner  of  carry- 
ing them  was  very  amusing  to  me.  There  was 
the  spruce  young  man,  whose  box,  like  mine, 
was  of  the  folding  kind,  who  carried  it  with  all 
the  nonchalance  of  a  lord  in  the  morning,  but 
who  returned  in  the  evening  with  the  box  so 
snugly  hid  away  in  his  pocket  that  no  one  would 
have  suspected  but  that  he  had  dined  at  Kins- 
ley's. The  man  who  hurried  around  the  corner 
at  Canal  and  Madison  streets,  with  a  russet 
hand  bag  swung  over  his  shoulder  by  a  strap, 
might  have  alighted  from  the  Pennsylvania 
limited,  but  after  you  had  seen  him  morning 
after  morning  for  a  few  weeks,  always  carrying 
the  bag,  you  concluded  that  he  lived  in  one  of 
the  suburbs  and  that  the  bag  contained  his 
lunch.  The  girl  who  carried  what  seemed  to 
be  a  music  portfolio  in  one  hand,  while  with  the 
other  she  caught  up  several  inches  of  superflu- 
ous train,  was  not    a    member  of  some  early 


RAY    BURTON.  53 

morning  music  class,  but  a  cashier  in  a  down- 
town store.  The  food  that  she  could  put  into 
that  small  box  must  have  been  in  such  Homeo- 
pathic particles  that  it  would  have  made  a  scant 
meal  for  even  a  mouse,  yet  that  was  her  dinner. 

When  one  travels  the  same  street  regularly  at 
a  certain  hour  each  day,  he  soon  finds  himself 
meeting  others  so  repeatedly  at  the  same  place 
that  a  kind  of  tacit  acquaintance  springs  up, 
and  each  looks  at  the  other  and  smiles,  as  much 
as  to  say  "Good  morning  Mr.  Walker!  I  see 
you  are  on  time,"  and  pass  on,  neither  knowing 
anything  of  the  affairs  of  the  other.  In  my 
imagination  I  often  followed  those  in  whom  I 
became  most  interested,  and  pictured  to  myself 
at  what  and  where  they  might  be  employed. 
The  man  with  the  pleasant  face  and  full  beard, 
whom  I  met  every  morning  on  the  Madison 
street  bridge,  I  fancied  was  a  ticket  agent  in  the 
Union  Depot,  although  he  might  as  well  have 
been  a  salesman  in  a  West  Side  furniture  store. 
Thus,  many  things  conspired  to  keep  the  mind 
engaged  in  those  trips  to  and  from  work,  but 
after  all  they  were  only  the  introductory  and 
finale  to  a  busy  matter-of-fact  day's  duties. 

I  enjoyed  my  work  very  much,  principally,  I 
think,  because  I  realized  that  I  was  rendering  to 


54  KAY    BURTON. 

my  mother  the  aid  of  which  she  stood  so  much  in 
need  at  that  time.  The  first  time  I  met  Arthur 
after  I  began  work  was  the  most  trying  of  all  my 
days  in  regulation  trappings.  My  pride  would, 
not  down.  I  have  thought  since  that  it  might 
have  been  as  much  on  account  of  Florence  as 
her  brother,  but  at  that  time  I  could  not  bring 
myself  to  that  acknowledgment.  Arthur  was 
very  much  surprised,  to  be  sure,  when  he  saw  me 
thus  attired  and  with  a  blushing  countenance,  but 
after  I  had  told  him  everything — that  which  I 
had  longed  to  tell  him  before — he  grasped  my 
hand  and  said  I  did  right  in  helping  my  mother, 
and  that  I  ought  not  to  be  ashamed  of  doing 
that  which  seemed  my  duty.  The  greatest  dis- 
appointment to  us  was  the  fact  that  our  school 
days  together  were  ended.  I  felt  relieved  of  a 
great  burden  after  having  set  myself  right  with 
him,  and  I  might  add  that  my  spirits  were 
further  gladdened  when  Florence  said  she 
thought  I  looked  like  a  young  soldier  in  my 
uniform.  I  believed  my  old  friends  to  be  my 
friends  still,  and  felt  that  I  could  face  anything 
in  consequence. 

How  rapidly  time  flies  for  those  who  are  con- 
stantly employed!  The  summer  had  sped  by 
before  I  could  realize  that  it  had  more  than  be- 


RAV    BURTON.  55 

gun.  The  games  of  croquet  had  been  less  fre- 
quent, it  is  true,  than  the  summer  before,  but 
this  very  fact  gave  us  a  richer  appreciation  of 
them,  and  one  another,  also.  The  leaves  of  the 
maples  began  to  show  a  decided  tinge  of  red, 
indicating  that  the  genial  days  of  summer  were 
growing  shorter  and  gradually  verging  into 
autumn, — that  delightful  yet  melancholy  season 
that  arrays  itself  in  bright  colors  only  to  re- 
mind one  that  the  dress  is  but  a  holiday  attire 
too  gay  and  beautiful  to  last. 

With  the  coming  of  autumn  came  Miss  Bald- 
win, who  had  been  visiting  in  her  native  town 
in  New  England,  to  resume  her  place  in  the 
public  schools.  She  reminded  me  that  it  was 
time  to  lay  out  a  course  of  study  for  me  to  pur- 
sue of  evenings.  Nothing  could  have  pleased 
me  better.  Throughout  the  following  winter 
and  spring,  not  only  did  I  keep  up  the  work  she 
laid  out  for  me,  but  I  found  time  to  practice  and 
attain  a  tolerable  proficiency  in  telegraphy.  The 
boy  with  whom  I  practiced  this  art,  I  hardly 
need  say  was  Arthur.  As  we  were  seldom  to- 
gether by  day,  the  hours  and  half  hours  two  or 
three  times  a  week  thus  spent  together  of  eve- 
nings, were  regarded  as  little  more  than  recre- 
ation. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


FOUR  years  have  passed  since  the  happen- 
ings narrated  in  the  last  chapter,  and  autumn 
has  again  appeared  in  its  annual  visit,  finding 
me  snugly  housed  in  the  coop-like  office  of  the 
Western  Union  company  in  the  Sherman 
House.  On  the  particular  September  afternoon 
of  which  I  now  write,  I  sat  in  a  half-reflective 
mood  at  my  post,  an  open  letter  before  me  on 
the  table,  so  lost  to  everything  about  me  that 
my  sounder,  playing  a  regular  quickstep  of 
"ch"  "ch,"  failed  to  arouse  me.  I  had  been 
working  as  an  operator  for  nearly  a  year,  and 
had  been  in  the  office  in  the  Sherman  House 
almost  three  months.  The  letter  was  from 
Arthur,  who  had  gone  to  Ann  Arbor,  Michi- 
gan, to  arrange  to  enter  the  university  for  the 
regular  course.  He  wished  I  could  enter  with 
him.  How  my  heart  longed  to  do  so,  and  how 
keen  the  disappointment  that  I  could  never 
hope  to  take  a  collegiate  course!  I  was  brought 
to  myself  by  a  rap  on  the  counter.     Looking 


RAY    BURTON.  57 

up  I  saw  a  pleasant  appearing  gentleman  who 
wished  to  have  a  message  sent,  and  by  the 
frank  he  produced  I  observed  that  he  was  a 
Rock  Island  official.  I  immediately  sent  the 
telegram,  and  as  he  lingered  at  the  counter,  ap- 
parently in  no  great  hurry,  we  engaged  in  con- 
versation. He  finally  asked  me  how  old  I  was 
and  how  long  I  had  been  telegraphing,  '^nd 
added,  by  way  of  explanation,  that  the  Rock 
Island  road  was  extending  its  lines  beyond  the 
Missouri  river  points,  and  that  many  young 
men,  no  older  than  I,  were  earning  from  fifty 
to  seventy  dollars  "per  month  as  station  agents 
and  operators,  and  if  I  should  at  any  time  like 
to  try  railroad  work,  he  would  gladly  arrange 
the  matter  for  me.  Before^ going  away  he  gave 
me  his  card,  and  I  thanked  him  and  told  him  I 
would  take  his  kind  offer  under  consideration. 
This  was  new  food  for  my  thoughts.  Although 
Mr.  Bright  had  promised  me  good  pay  as  soon 
as  I  should  be  able  to  take  charge  of  a  "hot 
wire,"  I  did  not  like  the  prospect  of  waiting  per- 
haps two  or  three  years  before  I  could  hope 
to  reach  that  proficiency. 

Instead  of  spending  the  time  in  study  that 
evening,  as  was  my  custom,  I  went  forth  to 
walk  and  to  think, — bending  my  steps  toward 


58  KAV    BURTON. 

Jefferson  park,  partly  through  force  of  habit, 
but  mostly,  I  think,  because  Florence's  home 
lay  in  that  direction.  As  I  was  passing  Mr. 
Gray's  residence  Florence  happened  to  come 
out  on  the  veranda,  and  seeing  me  motioned  for 
me  to  come  in.  When  I  reached  the  porch  she 
said, — "Ray,  were  you  going  to  pass  by  and  not 
stop?  When  Arthur  was  here  you  used  never  to 
pass  by  without  sounding  your  special  call  at 
least." 

"Since  he  is  not  at  home  there  probably  is  no 
one  to  answer,  or  who  understands  our  peculiar 
whistles,"  I  replied. 

"Oh,  yes  there  is.  I  knov/  every  one  of  them," 
said  she,  and  at  once  began, to  repeat  some  of 
them  in  evidence,  until  my  laughter  destroyed 
the  pursed  condition  of  her  rose-red  lips.  After 
showing  her  Arthur's  letter,  she  remembered 
that  she  had  started  out  to  call  on  a  girl  friend 
in  the  next  block,  and,  as  it  was  in  the  direction 
I  was  going,  we  walked  on  together. 

We  had  gone  but  a  short  distance,  when,  be- 
fore a  new  residence  whose  front  stood  on  the 
modern  building  line,  leaving  but  a  meager  strip 
of  lawn  in  front,  Florence  stopped  suddenly  and 
exclaimed, — "Now,  isn't  that  lovely!"  I  soon 
found  that  the  object  of  her  admiration  was  in 


RAY    BURTON.  59 

the  show  window, — that  recent  innovation  that 
finds  a  place  in  almost  every  residence,  and  puts 
to  very  shame  the  shop  windows  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. It  was  not  the  window  itself  that  at- 
tracted her  notice,  but  what  she  called  the  ex- 
quisite taste  in  its  appointments.  Among  other 
things  to  be  seen  in  that  parlor  window  was  a 
beautiful  onyx  clock  on  a  brass  stand,  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  accommodate  the  passer-by  with 
the  time  of  day.  When  I  suggested  that  the 
clock  would  look  prettier  and  certainly  be  more 
useful  if  put  on  the  mantel  where  they  could 
see  its  face,  she  replied, — "That's  the  way  with 
men.  They  can't  see  the  beautiful  in  any- 
thing." 

"Except  in  women,"  said  I. 

She  pretended  to  pout  at  this  rejoinder,  but 
in  an  instant  we  were  walking  on  and  talking  as 
friendly  as  ever.  As  she  would  be  detained  but 
a  few  minutes  at  her  friend's  house,  she  re- 
quested me  to  wait  and  we  would  go  homeward 
together. 

Most  willingly  did  I  forego  a  trip  to  the  park 
for  the  company  of  this  vivacious  creature,  who 
every  day  appeared  to  become  more  charming, 
and  certainly  every  day  seemed  to  be  getting 
farther  and  farther  away  from  me  and  boys  of 


60  KAV    BURTON. 

my  age.  True,  I  was  a  few  months  older  than 
she,  but  I  was  a  mere  stripling  while  she  was 
developing  into  young  womanhood. 

We  went  home  by  Adams  street,  and  as  we 
turned  into  Aberdeen  street,  we  stopped  to  ad- 
mire the  beautiful  grounds  of  the  old  Schuttler 
residence.  Before  leaving  the  place  I  ventured 
to  contrast  the  old-fashioned  places  that  have 
ample  yard  space  to  the  new  place  before 
which  we  had  stopped.  She  said, — "You  and 
Arthur  are  very  much  alike  in  your  tastes  and 
are  both  inclined  to  old-fogyism." 

After  parting  from  Florence  at  her  gate, 
I  walked  slowly  to  my  own  home  in  a  very 
unsettled  state  of  mind.  It  seemed  that  she 
was  becoming  more  austere  than  I  thought 
it  possible  for  her  ever  to  be.  A  spirit  of  ad- 
venture appeared  to  have  fastened  itself  upon 
me,  too,  that  evening,  and  before  I  retired  I 
had  resolved  to  persuade  mother  to  allow  me 
to  accept  a  position  with  the  Rock  Island  com- 
pany. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


ALONG  blast  from  the  locomotive's  whistle 
announced  our  approach  to  a  station,  and 
my  railway  folder  of  the  "Great  Albert  Lea 
Route"  showed  all  stations  checked  as  having 
been  passed,  on  the  division  on  which  we  were 
then  traveling,  up  to  Horton  Junction,  into  the 
corporate  limits  of  which  place  we  were  now 
slowly  and  smoothly  gliding.  A  city?  No, 
but  a  brisk  railroad  town  which  had  sprung,  as 
if  by  magic,  (of  the  mushroom  variety,)  from  a 
Kansas  cornfield. 

The  Rock  Island's  lines  beyond  the  Missouri 
river  points  were  incorporated  under  the  name 
of  the  "Chicago  Kansas  &  Nebraska  Railroad 
Co."  and  continued  so  for  several  years,  before 
they  were  fully  adopted  and  became  branches 
of  the  mighty  parent  stem. 

At  Horton  Junction  werethe  extensive  shops 
for  these  western  lines,  making  it  quite  an  im- 
portant headquarters.  The  supply  store  was 
here;  and  it   boasted  also  a  fine,  new  union  de- 


62  RAV    BURTON. 

pot,  where  arrived  and  departed  no  trains  but 
those  of  the  C.  K.  &  N.  road.  Here,  too,  was 
a  real-estate  boom,  which,  by  way  of  advertis- 
ihg  itself,  furnished  the  electric  lights  to  the 
place;  and  furthermore  built  a  street  railway, 
that  ran  about  a  mile  back  from  the  depot,  by 
the  side  of  certain  valuable  town  lots.  It  may 
truthfully  be  said  that  in  the  two  bob-tail  cars 
on  this  line  no  one  ever  was  seen  to  ride  save 
the  irrepressible  small  boys.  C.  K.  &  N.  were 
magic  letters  here,  their  talismanic  influence 
permeating  the  entire  municipality.  Banks, 
newspaper  offices  and  stores  regarded  them  as 
better  omens  of  good  luck  than  the  well-known 
horseshoe.  At  the  hotel  I  observed  that  they 
had  a  conspicuous  place  on  the  meal  tickets, 
and  even  at  times,  seemed  to  get  mysteriously 
mixed  up  with  the  hash.  They  were  to  be  seen 
on  the  caps  of  all  the  employes  about  the 
depot  and  on  the  trains. 

I  had  just  entered  the  superintendent's  office, 
on  the  second  floor  of  the  depot  building,  when 
in  came  a  large,  dark  man,  across  the  front  of 
whose  cap,  in  white  letters,  was  this  word — 
"porter",  who  approached  the  dignitary  of  the 
room  and  proceeded  to  pull  off  his  shoes  and  to 
shine  them,  while  he  went  on  with  his  pressing 


RAY    BURTON.  63 

work,  a  shoeless  monarch.  [This  same  super- 
intendent lent  a  hand  in  clearing  tracks  of 
wrecked  cars  in  the  Chicago  yards  at  the  time 
of  the  great  sympathetic  railroad  strike  in  1894.] 

He  spent  one  and  a  half — possibly  two  min- 
utes of  his  valuable  time  looking  over  my  some- 
what voluminous  letter  of  recommendation, 
after  which,  being  once  more  provided  with  his 
footgear,  he  held  a  hurried  consultation  with 
his  clerk,  then  hastened  away  to  catch  a  train 
for  Topeka,  the  Mecca  of  the  system. 

Th^clerk  informed  me  that  I  was  to  hold  my- 
self in  readiness  to  go  out  on  short  notice  to  do 
relief  work,  and  as  a  preparatory  step,  should 
spend  a  short  time  with  trainmaster  Bailey,  who 
would  catechise  me  on  their  order  and  signal 
system. 

The  following  winter  I  spent  in  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  usually  remaining  a  month  at  a 
place,  relieving  regular  agents  who  wished 
vacations,  and  at  the  end  of  each  month  I  found 
myself  back  at  Horton  Junction.  This  unset- 
tled kind  of  life  was  not  what  I  was  looking 
for,  so  I  asked  for  and  received  a  permanent 
position  the  following  spring,  in  a  town  in 
northwestern  Kansas,  which  for  convenience,  I 
shall  call  Turnerville. 


64  RAY    BURTON. 

Here,  in  the  springtime,  hope  rose  to  its 
maximum  height  in  the  hearts  of  the  farmers 
and  stockmen,  as  they  watched  with  expectant 
eyes  the  growth  of  the  grass  and  corn.  In  July 
all  was  changed.  What  had  been  a  "land  of 
promise"  was  converted  into  a  Sahara.  The 
hot  winds  had  blown  over  the  ill-fated  section 
and  left  its  inevitable  results;  and  on  the  farm- 
er's face,  where  so  lately  hope  had  beamed, 
now  rested  a  settled  look  of  despair,  and  on  his 
farm  rested,  somewhat  less  settled,  the  last 
year's  mortgage.  The  suffering  that  in  some 
years  fell  to  the  lot  of  man  and  beast  in  this 
district,  on  account  of  drouth,  has  never  been 
fully  related. 

The  primitive  condition  of  much  of  the  land 
lying  adjacent  to  Turnerville  was  quite  a  study 
to  him  who  had  known  of  the  west  only 
through  reading  of  it.  Here  was  the  sod  house, 
or  "dugout"  of  the  first  settler,  in  a  state  of  de- 
cay; the  buffalo  wallow,  now  deserted  by  the 
monarch  of  the  plains;  the  half  obliterated 
bridle  path  of  the  red  man;  the  long-legged, 
long-eared  jackrabbit;  the  prowling,  cushion- 
footed  coyote,  that  deceitful  trotter,  whose 
mangy,  dried-up  condition  Mark  Twain  aptly 
described  when  he  said  "a  flea. would  leave  it 


RAY    BURTON.  6$ 

for  a  velocipede;"  and  last,  and  I  might  appro- 
priately say,  least,  the  little  socialistic  prairie 
dog,  whose  municipal  traits  were  hardly  over- 
drawn by  Irving,  in  his  graphic  description  of  a 
prairie-dog  village.  This  last  named  animal 
afforded  me  much  diversion.  In  Mr.  Turner's 
pasture,  near  my  station,  was  a  town  of  them, 
and  I  frequently  trespassed  upon  their  domains. 
They  were  quite  shy,  and  in  order  to  get  a  view 
of  them  at  all  I  had  to  approach  very  quietly 
and  then  stand  motionless  for  at  least  a  half 
hour,  when,  becoming  accustomed  to  my  fixed 
position,  one,  some  distance  away,  ventured  to 
put  his  head  and  shoulders  out  of  his  hole  and 
to  bark  vigorously;  then  another  on  the  other 
side  of  the  town  became  a  little  braver  and 
showed  more  of  himself  and  barked  in  a  more 
threatening  manner;  then  here  another  and 
there  yet  another,  until  every  little  mound  in 
the  village  emitted  a  protest  against  the  mo- 
tionless something  that  had  dared  to  invade 
their  orderly  town. 

I  must  confess  it  made  me  feel  very  like  a 
culprit  to  have  all  their  scolding  accusations 
heaped  upon  me;  so,  after  I  had  studied  their 
fussy,  chubby  figures  for  a  time,  I  brought  my 
hand  up,  as  in  giving  the  military  salute;  when. 


66        *  RAY    BURTON. 

lo!  the  town  was  deserted  and  quiet,  so  sud- 
denly had  they  disappeared  at  the  first  sign  of 
a  motion. 

I  had  been  at  Turnerville  four  months,  when, 
in  July,  at  the  time  when  the  farmer  was  griev- 
ing over  his  blighted  corn,  I  became  similarly 
depressed  by  the  hand  of  the  company's  decap- 
itator.  I  lost  my  position  by  refusing  to  pay 
the  extra  mileage  charges  that  had  been 
assessed  on  an  empty  car  that  had  been  mis- 
routed  from  my  station.  I  had  sent  the  car  ac- 
cording to  telegraphic  instructions  from  the 
despatcher's  office,  but  had  kept  no  copy  of  the 
message,  so,  when  the  car  accountant  traced  the 
matter  up,  I  was  left  with  nothing  to  show  why 
I  had  sent  the  car  away  from  its  home  lines; 
and  my  word,  in  regard  to  routing  instructions, 
was  not  considered.  I  was  constrained  to 
choose  between  paying  the  mileage  and  losing 
my  position,  and  I  chose  the  latter. 

When  the  villagers  heard  that  I  was  to 
leave,  they  wrote  up  and  signed,  without  my 
knowledge,  a  petition  to  the  general  manager 
at  Topeka,  praying  him  to  have  me  reinstated. 
They  told  me  what  they  had  done  and  gave  me 
a  duplicate  of  the  papers.  I  thanked  them 
heartily  for  their  expressed  interest  in  me,  but 


RAY    BURTON. 


67 


told  them  it  would  have  no  weight  with  railroad 
officials.  Ever  since  then  I  have  had  a  tender 
regard  for  those  honest  folks  of  Turnerville. 

After  this  misfortune  there  seemed  to  be 
nothing  for  me  to  do  but  to  return  to  Chicago, 
which  I  did  very  soon,  and  where  I  have  since 
resided. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


I  HAD  been  gone  less  than  a  year,  and  it  was 
not  without  some  sense  of  chagrin  that  I  re- 
turned so  soon,  but  when  I  observed  my  moth- 
er's joy  at  having  me  with  her,  the  vexations  of 
my  railroad  experience  were  soon  forgotten. 

In  so  short  a  time  little  changes  had  taken 
place  which  were  apparent  to  me,  that  no  doubt 
escaped  the  notice  of  others.  My  mother,  whose 
health  was  never  fully  restored  after  the  shock 
received  at  the  death  of  my  father,  was  notice- 
ably thinner  and  paler.  The  silver  in  Miss 
Baldwin's  hair  showed  very  much  plainer  than 
when  I  left, — in  fact  I  do  not  think  I  had  ever 
noticed  it  before.  Grace  Wentworth,  whom  I 
had  always  regarded  as  a  little  sister,  I  was  as- 
tonished to  find  had  grown  too  large  to  be 
kissed  by  me  and  had  assumed  coy  and  lady- 
like^ manners.  She  had  made  remarkable  prog- 
ress in  music  in  the  past  year,  being  almost  a 
musical  prodigy, — according  to  her  teacher's 
way  of  stating  it.     Mother  remarked,  casually 


RAY    BURTON.  DQ 

that  she  thought  Grace  was  becoming  hand- 
some. No  one  who  knew  her  doubted  it,  but 
one  had  to  be  acquainted  with  her  to  observe 
the  fact.  Florence  was  as  jolly  as  ever,  but  the 
ring  of  her  laughter  showed  traces  of  education, 
and  she  assumed  an  unnatural  manner  of  walk- 
ing. But  one  must  consider  that  the  hearty 
laugh^  and  merry  skip  of  childhood  cannot 
always  remain  with  us.  Arthur  was  home  on 
vacation.  In  him  there  was  little  change,  be- 
ing the  same  dear  friend  he  always  had  been. 

On  the  whole,  I  felt  glad  to  be  at  home  again 
and  to  live  within  its  influence.  But  I  could 
not  long  remain  idle,  I  must  seek  employment. 
Did  you  ever  seek  employment?  You  found 
her  a  coy  creature,  I  dare  say! 

I  would  go  to  see  Mr.  Bright,  in  the  Western 
Union  office. 

On  my  way  there  my  footsteps  seemed  natu- 
rally to  take  the  direction  of  the  old  boat  shop. 
I  am  unable  to  explain  just  why  it  attracted  me. 
It  was  anything  but  an  attractive  place.  It  may 
have  been  on  account  of  my  early  associations 
with  the  locality,  but  most  likely  because  of 
the  kind  hearted,  fatherly  Mr.  Cay,  who  was 
always  to  be  found  busy  at  work  in  this  shop. 

How  narrow  the  river  seemed,  now  that  I  had 


70  RAY    BURTON. 

seen  the  Father  of  Waters!  Even  at  the  fork 
north  of  the  Lake  street  bridge  it  illy  deserved 
the  name  of  river,  as  to  width,  and  as  to  cur- 
rent, never. 

If  there  was  any  change  on  the  wharf  near 
the  shop  it  was  probably  that  a  few  more  rusty 
anchors  had  been  added  to  the  old  time  num- 
ber, that  had  lain  there  since  my  first  knowl- 
edge of  the  place. 

Mr.  Cay  and  Trip  observed  me  at  the  same 
time  and  both  came  forward  to  greet  me. 

'"EUo,  Ray,  me  boy,  'ow-do-you-do!" 

I  shook  the  old  man's  hand  with  as  much 
eagerness  as  I  could  have  shown  for  a  near  rel- 
ative. 

Trip  held  up  his  paw  to  be  "shook,"  a  trick 
that  I  had  taught  him,  and  further  expressed 
his  delight  by  wagging  his  tail  in  such  a  rapid 
succession  of  raps  against  the  leg  of  the  work- 
bench, that  I  was  fearful  lest  he  should  injure 
that  restless  appendage. 

In  the  chat  that  ensued  I  learned  that  Mr. 
Bright  had  been  transferred  to  Denver,  on  ac- 
count of  his  health;  the  woman  never  passed 
that  way  any  more;  and  Frank  was  delivering 
papers  over  a  West  Side  route.  Mr.  Cay  sug- 
gested that  I  should  go  the  Western  Union  com- 


RAY    BURTON.  7 1 

pany  again.  He  thought  it  likely  that  they 
would  give  me  my  old  place.  I  told  him  that 
I  had  set  out  to  do  that  very  thing, — and  was 
just  going,  when  he  said, — 

"Ray,  do  you  remember  'Ankins?" 

"Hankins,  the  man  who  once  worked  in  the 
store?"  I  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  recollect  somewhat  of  him! 
What  about  him,  Mr.  Cay?" 

"He  was  'ere  the  bother  day,  and  was  bask- 
ing about  you.  He  is  sailing  on  the  lakes  now- 
a-days." 

"I  remember  he  was  a  sailor.  Good-by,  Mr, 
Cay!" 

"Good-day,  me  boy!" 

I  left  my  application  with  the  telegraph 
company  that  day,  but  was  told  that  they  were 
not  in  need  of  help  at  the  time.  That  done,  I 
began  a  careful  search  through  the  "want" 
columns  of  the  dailies. 

This  means  of  procuring  employment  par- 
takes somewhat  of  the  nature  of  a  game  of 
chance,  or  lottery.  Certainly  the  number  of 
letters  one  writes  in  answer  to  advertisements 
before  receiving  a  reply,  corresponds  very 
nearly   to    the   usual    number   of   blanks   to  a 


72  RAV  BURTON. 

prize.  The  possibilities  that  one's  mind  conr 
jures  up  and  dwells  upon,  while  waiting  for 
these  answers  that  never  come,  serve  to  keep 
one's  courage  up  to  the  sticking  point.  One 
feels  equal  to  anything, — in  fact  able  to  cope 
with  a  high  salaried  bank  position,  but  is  not 
surprised,  when,  later  on,  he  accepts  a  position 
as  general  utility  man  in  a  department  store. 

In  a  few  weeks,  after  having  exhausted  my 
entire  stock  of  epistolary  lore,  as  well  as  my 
stationery,  I  secured  a  position  as  entry  clerk 
in  a  wholesale  clothing  house.  This  firm,  E.  L. 
Warp  &  Co.,  did  a  thriving  business  in  Monroe 
street,  not  far  distant  from  the  river. 
__The  experience  I  had  received  at  way-billing 
and  checking  way-bills,  enabled  me  to  take  up 
the  work  of  entering,  extending  and  billing 
without  any  trouble. 

"Why  did  you  take  a  place  in  a  clothing 
store,  Ray?"  Arthur  asked,  when  I  told  him  of 
my  work. 

"Because  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  be  em- 
ployed, and  this  was  the  first  thing  that  of- 
fered." 

"If  you  had  waited  a  little  longer  probably 
you  could  have  secured  a  position  at  telegraph- 


RAY    BURTON.  73 

"If  I  liked  that  kind  of  work  as  well  as  you 
do,  Arthur,  I,  no  doubt,  would  have  had  the 
patience  to  have  waited  indefinitely;  but  the 
truth  is,  I  rather  wished  for  something  differ- 
ent." 

Arthur  was  such  an  enthusiast  on  electricity, 
especially  as  applied  to  telegraphy,  that  he 
had  a  battery  and  instrument  in  his  room  at 
school,  and  had  earned  the  name  of  electrician 
from  his  associates. 


CHAPTER   X. 


THE  shipping  room  of  E.  L.  Warp  &.  Co.'s 
establishment  was  not  very  different,  in 
most  particulars,  from  other  shipping  rooms  in 
the  neighborhood.  My  desk,  although  inclined 
to  be  migratory  in  its  habits,  was  considered  a 
near  neighbor  to  the  shipping  clerk's  desk; 
and,  on  account  of  their  common  interests, 
(and  I  might  consistently  add,  aspects,)  the 
one  was  very  often  mistaken  for  the  other. 
Likewise  their  respective  clerks. 

After  one  has  worked  at  a  certain  desk  for  a 
considerable  time  he  comes  to  regard  the  vari- 
ous objects  on  and  about  it  as  old  acquaint- 
ances, and  is  on  good  terms  or  quarrels  with 
them  in  the  proportion  that  they  are  in  or  out 
of  their  proper  places. 

On  the  end  of  the  desk  hung  my  memoran- 
dum hook,  which  had  the  capacity  for  an  un- 
limited amount  of  chaotic  matter,  consisting  of 
sundry  overcharges,  undercharges,  corrected 
terms,  etc.     One  needed  the  patience  of  Job  to 


RAY    BURTON.  75 

reduce  it  to  anything  like  order.  It  never  had 
been  entirely  cleared  of  its  accumulation  of 
papers;  probably  because,  like  the  wonderful 
pitcher  of  Mother  Baucis,  it  was  played  upon 
by  some  occult  means  of  supply. 

By  the  shipping  clerk's  desk  hung  the 
Shipper's  Guide.  It  was  an  universal  friend. 
With  its  peculiar  binding,  the  square,  black  ad- 
vertisement of  the  Burlington  Route  on  the 
front  cover,  its  white,  green  and  yellow  leaves, 
very  much  besmeared  with  ink,  it  impressed  its 
identity  so  firmly  upon  one's  mind  that  he  had 
but  to  think  of  it  to  see  it. 

Suspended  from  the  ceiling  near  the  center 
of  the  room  hung  an  immense  arc  light,  which 
with  all  the  care  bestowed  by  a  kindly  dis- 
posed electrician,  had  a  habit  of  "flickering," 
often  at  the  very  time  when  most  needed.  In 
this  particular,  I  now  remember,  it  was  not  very 
differerrt  from  certain  animate  objects  that  held 
positions  in  the  same  house  with  it. 

The  shipping  clerk,  Tom  Bluford,  was 
among  the  first  with  whom  I  became  intimate. 
He  was  a  sort  of  all-around  genius  but  was  ex- 
ceptionally apt  with  the  marking  brush,  which 
he  wielded  with  all  the  dexterity  of  Freytag's 
Herr  Pix.     He  had  reached  middle  life,  was  a 


76  RAY    BURTON. 

kind-hearted  man  and  very  much  liked  by  his 
employers  and  associates. 

Charles  Snyder,  whose  grandfather  probably 
wrote  his  name  Schneider,  was  order  Clerk,  who 
attended  to  charging  the  goods.  He  and  I 
were  thrown  together  very  much  in  our  work, 
Henry  Grubb,  who  helped  Charles  and  who 
followed  him  like  his  shadow,  was  often  jok- 
ingly called  "Friday." 

In  the  extreme  end  of  the  basement  near  the 
boilers  with  scarcely  a  ray  of  daylight  falling 
upon  it,  stood  the  desk  of  Herman  Pfoutz,  the 
engineer.  He  had  spent  his  boyhood  days  on 
his  grandfather's  Wisconsin  farm,  where  he  had 
learned  to  love  both  the  song  and  the  freedom 
of  the  robin;  yet  we  find  him  engaged  in  a  life's 
work  that  isolated  him  from  nature's  rural  vo- 
luptuousness. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  certainly  in  this  and 
like  places  the  employe  spends  the  daytime  of 
his  life  in  a  dungeon,  from  which  he  emerges 
at  night  to  mingle  with  the  people  of  the  out- 
side world.  It  may  be  that  he  is  the  respected 
head  of  a  family,  and  is  looked  up  to  with  love 
and  pride.  He  may  be  "a  man  among  men"  in 
his  lodge,  town  or  social  meetings.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  he  and  his  good  wife  occupy  reserved 


RAY    BURTON.  7/ 

seats  in  the  front  row  at  the  church  or  theatre. 
When  morning  comes,  however,  he  hastens 
away,  not  so  much  from  eagerness  as  from 
habit,  to  again  entomb  himself,  as  in  a  cloister, 
for  the  space  of  another  day.  He  left  his  home 
in  the  morning,  a  man;  he  entered  upon  his 
duties,  a  machine.  Smooth-running  it  may  be, 
yet  a  machine. 

I,  too,  became  a  machine  of  this  sort. 

The  concern  of  E.  L.  Warp  &  Co.  might  be 
compared  to  a  piece  of  complex  machinery,  the 
mainspring  of  which  was  Mr.  Hildebrand,  the 
manager.  He  was  a  small  man,  pleasant  but 
alert.  He  had  a  way  of  smiling  clear  through 
you,  (if  you  will  allow  the  expression,)  with- 
out disturbing  your  anatomcial  construction. 
Method  was  everything  with  him.  His  initial, 
as  signature  on  orders,  was  always  placed  in  a 
certain  position,  and  looked  as  much  like  any  one 
of  the  other  twenty-five  letters  as  it  did  like  the 
letter  H  that  it  was  intended  to  represent.  This 
enigmatical  manner  of  signing  is  rather  a  com- 
mon peculiarity,  I  believe,  in  business  circles, 
and,  like  smoking  or  wearing  creases  in  the 
trousers,  bespeaks  a  certain  degree  of  style. 
However,  he  could  write  a  good  business  hand 
when  it  was  his  pleasure. 


78  RAY    BURTON. 

When  standing  at  the  desk  referring  to  ledger 
entries,  one  was  liable  to  mistake  him  for  the 
ofifice  boy,  but  when  he  turned  up  pages  and 
jotted  down  data  in  true  Tim  Linkinwater  accur- 
acy and  rapidity,  one  somehow  agreed  with 
the  office  girls,  that  he  was  a  remarkable  man. 


CHAPTER  XL 


AFTER  I  had  been  six  months  or  more  with 
E.  L.  Warp  &  Co.,  I  learned  incidentally 
that  the  shipping  clerk  was  soon  to  be  allowed 
an  assistant.  I  lost  no  time  in  seeing  Mr. 
Bluford  about  the  place  for  my  newsboy  friend, 
Frank.  His  application  was  considered  and  he 
was  given  the  position.  I  was  glad  to  be  of  as- 
sistance to  him,  for  I  knew  him  to  be  a  worthy, 
industrious  boy;  and  I  had  heard  M^.  Cay  say 
that  he  had  a  widowed  mother  whom  he  helped 
to  a  living,  although  he  seldom  spoke  of  her 
himself. 

Frank  was  a  strong,  well  developed  boy  and 
soon  made  himself  so  useful  that  he  was  thought 
to  be  indispensable,  and  was  kept,  not  only 
through  the  busy  season,  but  all  the  year  round. 

There  was  one  other  employe  of  whom  I  wish 

to    speak  before  passing  this   point,  a  sort  of 

petty   manager,   of   the  name    of  Loftie.     He 

prided  himself  on  the  fact  that  he  had  been  born 

New  York  city,  and  was  so  enthusiastic  over 


80  RAY    BURTON. 

anything  that  bore  any  reference  to  Gotham, 
that,  it  was  averred  by  some  of  the  boys,  he  actu- 
ally doffed  his  hat  on  meeting  a  Knickerbocker 
ice  wagon. 

Mr.  Loftie  would  have  had  more  friends 
among  us  had  he  not  on  all  occasions  dissemi- 
nated such  an  extravagant  air  of  superiority. 
In  conversation  he  was  quite  a  sputterer,  and 
left  one  with  a  sort  of  confused  impression  of 
whiskers  and  verbosity,  and  one  could  hardly 
determine  which  was  the  more  crinkled  and 
twisted. 

To  hear  him  job  off  a  lot  of  odds  and  ends  to 
a  Clark  street  dealer,  led  one  to  conclude  that, 
after  all,  he  was  an  important  man  in  a  small 
way. 

His  introduction  to  the  shipping  room,  soon 
after  he  came  to  the  house,  was  rather  cyclonic 
in  its  main  features.  He  came  rushing  in  and 
exploded  in  our  midst, — these  words  flying  hap- 
hazard like  so  many  shot  from  a  canister: 

"I  say,  Mr.  Bluford,  what's  in  this  bale,  and 
by  what  road  did  it  come?  I  want  to  keep  tab 
on  these  things,  don't  you  know!" 

"The  bale  was  routed  over  the  Hair  line,  and 
contains  a  piece  of  'airline  cloth,"  Mr.  Bluford 


RAY    BURTON.  01 

made  answer;  and  each  stared  at  the  other  as 
much  as  to  say, — "I  like  your  style." 

The  shipping  room  was  a  general  resort  at 
noon  for  almost  all  the  men  and  boys  who 
brought  luncheon  with  them.  Henry  Grubb 
was  always  ready  with  a  discourse  on  the  deli- 
cacies that  his  wife  had  just  made  from  cer- 
tain products  that  he  had  procured  the  day  be- 
fore on  South  Water  street,  thus  making  our 
mouths  water,  and  unintentionally  aiding  us  in 
the  mastication  of  our  dry  food. 

Charles  Snyder's  talk  when  not  of  an  epicu- 
rean nature,  turned  to  gunning  and  fishing.  He 
had  gone  with  certain  members  of  the  firm,  be- 
fore their  business  had  assumed  very  considera- 
ble proportions,  on  camping  expeditions  to 
Wisconsin,  where  they  had  fished  from  the  same 
boat,  slept  in  the  same  tent  and  probably  drunk 
from  the  same  decanter.  He  told  many  inter- 
esting incidents  of  these  outings,  and  retold 
many  of  them  each  season  with  clocklike  reg- 
ularity. They  were  very  diverting  to  the  new- 
comers. 

And  the  old  packer,  who  had  sailed  before 
the  mast,  and  also  spent  some  years  in  the  gold 
fields  of  Australia,  never  lacked  an  audience 
when  he  felt  disposed  to  talk. 


82  RAY    BURTON, 

Then,  too,  there  was  the  quiet  man,  who  was 
an  all-around  assistant.  He  had  not  much  to 
say  of  exploits  abroad,  but  was  full  of  informa- 
tion on  general  topics.  At  the  time  of  the  civil 
war,  he  was  a  lad  working  on  an  Indiana  farm, 
when  his  elder  brothers,  with  thousands  of  other 
young  men,  donned  the  blue  uniform,  shoul- 
dered the  musket  and  marched  away  to  the 
front.  In  the  last  call  for  volunteers,  he  him- 
self, had  gone,  young  as  he  was,  but  "Appo- 
mattox" had  been  freshly  inscribed  on  history's 
pages  ere  they  had  passed  the  limits  of  their 
own  state. 

He  had  been,  all  through  his  life,  a  close  ob- 
server, and  a  real  student  of  Nature.  He  under- 
stood the  habits  of  animals,  and  knew  all  the 
wild  flowers  of  this  latitude  and  was  able  to  give 
the  medicinal  properties  of  the  more  important 
ones.  The  names  of  trees  and  shrubs  he  told 
off  like  reciting  a  well  learned  lesson. 

We  had  walked  one  afternoon  in  the  groves 
bordering  on  the  Desplaines  river,  far  away  from 
the  city's  bustle,  where  Nature  articulates  a  lan- 
guage peculiarly  her  own  and  far  too  plain  to 
be  misunderstood  by  her  votaries.  I  here  learned 
that  he  was  a  Thoreau  woodman.  (The  reader 
will  excuse  what  appears  to  be  a  pun  at  the  ex- 


RAY    BURTON.  83 

pense  of  one  of  the  most  unique  of  American 
naturalists,  when  I  explain  that  I  mean  he  was 
much  like  that  eminent  woodman  in  his  care- 
ful observation.)  When  in  the  woods  he  was 
altogether  a  changed  man.  He  seemed  to  com- 
mune with  the  trees  and  shrubs  about  him  as  they 
appeared  to  reach  out  their  graceful  braches  to 
welcome  him.  He  pointed  out  trees  that  were 
near  of  kin,  so  to  speak,  and  explained  the  char- 
acteristics by  which  this  relationship  was  known. 
The  same  he  did  with  the  flowers.  This  was 
the  most  profitable  ramble  I  had  ever  taken  in 
the  woodland. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  spend  a  half  day 
with  this  quiet  man  in  Jackson  park  in  the 
summer  of  1893.  I  had  not  seen  him  before 
that  time  for  several  years,  nor  do  I  now  know 
his  whereabouts.  Of  course  we  visited  the 
forestry  building,  because  it  was  where  his 
inclinations  led  him,  and  I  was  glad  of  the 
opportunity  of  so  learned  a  guide.  When  we 
approached  Indiana's  exhibit,  he  said: 

"Young  man,  I'll  wager  a  double  round  at 
the  White  Horse,"  (which  was  not  much  when 
one  recalls  the  construction  of  the  mugs,)  "that 
I  can  name  any  or  all  of  the  trees  in  the  collec- 
tion." 


84  RAY    BURTON. 

Without  accepting  the  bet,  I  put  him  to  the 
test  and  found  him  equal  to  the  task. 

But  I  have  digressed.  To  return  to  the  ship- 
ping room,  it  was  this  quiet  man  who  amused 
us  younger  people  most  of  all  with  stories  of 
his  boyhood.  Fishing  for  bass  was  one  of  his 
favorite  sports.  No  lessons  in  theoretic  cast- 
ing had  he  ever  taken.  He  laughed  at  the 
idea.  He  told  of  the  wood-pheasant  and  how 
it  did  its  drumming;  of  the  opossum  and  its 
peculiar  manner  of  carrying  its  young,  and 
that  its  nearest  kinsman  lives  in  far  away 
Australia;  and  of  the  otter  and  its  style  of 
coasting  without  the  aid  of  snow.  He  had 
found  many  Indian  relics,  and  had  played  by 
the  grave  of  Peter  Cornstalk,  an  Indian  chief, 
who  is  buried  on  a  hill-side  by  Pete's  Run,  a 
small  stream  that  perpetuates  his  name. 

Thus,  were  our  noonings  spent  in  pleasant 
chat,  and  especially  interesting  they  were  for 
the  few  months  that  the  quiet  man  was  with 
us. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


WORKING  day  by  day  with  Frank  enabled 
me  to  observe  that  there  was  nothing 
coarse  about  his  personal  appearance  or  actions, 
such  as  one  might  naturally  expect  to  see  in  a 
boy  brought  up  in  the  street.  He  possessed  an 
attractive  face.  There  played  within  his  laugh- 
ing eyes  a  peculiar  twinkle  that  reminded  me  of 
someone  else  whom  I  frequently  met.  It  was 
several  days,  however,  before  I  found  out  which 
of  my  acquaintances  bore  the  resemblance,  and 
many  more  before  I  made  an  interesting  dis- 
covery, that  will  have  some  bearing  on  this  tale, 
as  developments  will  show. 

Frank  had  spoken  several  times  about  having 
gone  on  errands  to  a  certain  physician's,  which 
aroused  my  curiosity  and  on  inquiry  I  found 
that  his  mother  had  been  suffering  of  lung 
trouble,  and  that  he  had  received  encouraging 
words  from  the  doctor.  I  was  pleased  to  know 
that  he  took  so  much  interest  in  his  mother's 
welfare,  but  I  could  not  keep  my  mind   from 


86  KAY    BURTON. 

dwelling  on  the  fact  that  the  physician  to  whom 
his  mother  had  sent  him  was  none  other  than 
our  old  family  doctor  who  had  lately  estab- 
lished himself  in  a  downtown  office  for  certain 
hours  of  each  day. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  I  became  fully 
aware  of  the  material  growth  of  our  old  neigh- 
bors— the  Grays.  They  had  shown  symptoms 
of  opulence  in  many  little  apparently  acci- 
dental ways,  which,  on  close  investigation, 
proved  to  be  a  sort  of  hand-bill  advertisement 
of  the  fact. 

Florence  had  once  told  me  in  a  burst  of  con- 
fidence, that  her  father  could  make  a  thousand 
dollars  or  more  almost  with  one  stroke  of  his 
pen;  and  that,  with  her  limited  knowledge  of 
the  shrewd  diplomacy  of  her  aldermanic  father, 
was  a  mere  shadow  of  the  real  earnings  of  this 
great  municipal  legislator. 

Some  years  before  I  had  heard  Mr.  Gray  re- 
mark to  some  gentlemen,  who,  Arthur  had  told 
me,  were  promoters  of  a  great  improvement 
corporation — whatever  that  meant — that  he 
would  fix  that  little  matter  at  the  next  meet- 
ing. He  had  now  been  in  his'  ward's  service 
for  six  years,  and,  after  Florence's  confidence, 
I  could  not  help  recalling  her  father's  words, 


RAY    BURTON.  87 

and  wondered  to  myself  how  many,  many  times 
he  must  have  "fixed  matters"  during  his  long 
term  in  office. 

At  that  time  as  well  as  now,  there  was  sand- 
bagging in  dark  alleys  by  footpads,  and  there 
was  sandbagging  in  legislative  and  commercial 
halls  by  the  very  pillars  of  our  social  system. 
Here,  in  this  city,  on  whose  soil  not  many  dec- 
ades ago  roamed  the  unlettered  savage,  (sub- 
sisting on  wild  game,  seasoned  to  some  extent 
no  doubt  with  the  aromatic  vegetable  after 
which  it  was  named,)  there  has  risen  a  modern 
savage,  whose  perfidy  transcends  that  of  his 
dusky  brother  of  half  a  century  ago.  The  erst- 
while savage  wore  beads, — the  present  speci- 
men wears  diamonds. 

The  study  of  civilization  has  so  many  stand- 
points from  which  it  may  be  scrutinized,  that  it 
becomes  a  difficult  matter  to  say  with  any  de- 
gree of  certainty  that  such-and-such  were  bar- 
barous ages  or  that  some  other  is  the  exemplifi- 
cation of  civilized  refinement. 

At  the  last  election,  however,  Mr.  Gray  failed 
of  reelection,  and,  as  if  to  punish  his  old  con- 
stituents for  derelict  duties,  he  had  shortly 
thereafter  removed  from  the  ward  to  a  palatial 
residence  on  Washington  boulevard  near  Gar- 


»«  KAV    BURTON. 

field  park.  The  acquisition  of  this  valuable 
property  was  what  led  mc  to  conclude  that  they 
were  really  accumulating  wealth. 

1  passed  by  their  old  home  on  Monroe  street 
a  few  days  after  their  departure.  It  was 
tenanted  by  strangers,  and  in  the  front  window 
hung  a  card  bearing  this  legend — "Rooms  to 
Rent." 

It  was  not  without  a  feeling  of  sadness  that 
I  looked  upon  these  changes  and  thought  of 
the  childhood  joys  that  positively  had  termi- 
nated with  them. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 


ONE  evening  as  I  returned  rather  belated 
from  an  errand  to  the  North  Side,  I 
stopped  by  the  "Bx"  Western  Union  office,  in 
Wabash  avenue  near  Lake  street,  to  watch  an 
operator  in  his  rush  of  eastern  work  as  he  sat 
at  the  New  York  table.  As  I  stood  partly  hid- 
den in  the  alley,  looking  through  the  window 
at  this  agile  manipulator  of  Morse,  my  thoughts 
went  back  to  the  time  when  I  was  similarly  em- 
ployed, and  when  a  very  good  friend  of  mine 
occupied  a  position  in  this  same  office. 

How  long  I  stood  thus  absorbed  I  can  not 
now  recall,  but  I  remember  that  I  became  con- 
scious that  some  one  was  near  me.  I  peered 
cautiously  over  my  shoulder  and  beheld  Mr. 
Wentworth  on  the  sidewalk  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  alley  with  his  back  toward  me,  talk- 
ing in  a  low  tone  to  the  very  woman  whom  I 
had  seen  near  Mr.  Cay's  shop.  Evidently  I 
had  not  been  seen  by  Mr.  Wentworth.  I  could 
account  for  his  being  in  this  locality,  as  he  had 


90  RAY    BURTON. 

but  recently  traded  his  commission  store  for  a 
business  in  River  street.  I  did  not  want  to  re- 
veal myself  nor  did  I  wish  to  eavesdrop.  I 
was  an  unwillin^^f  listener,  but  the  only  words 
that  I  heard  distinctly  were  these  from  the 
woman — "Your  sin  is  greater  than  mine."  Mr. 
Wentworth  placed  what  seemed  to  be  money 
in  her  hand,  and  they  separated,  he  going  south 
and  she  north. 

An  irresistible  impulse  took  possession  of  me 
to  follow  this  woman.  Shadowing  was  a  new 
role  to  me,  and  under  any  other  circumstances 
would  have  been  abandoned.  She  turned  west 
into  South  Water  street  and  it  being  very  dark 
I  almost  lost  trace  of  her.  At  Dearborn  street 
she  bent  her  steps  southward  and  paused  di- 
rectly under  the  lamp  by  the  Commercial  hotel, 
apparently  undecided  which  way  to  go.  I  came 
up  and  walked  on  to  the  opposite  corner.  I 
observed  in  passing  that  she  was  older  than  she 
appeared  to  be,  seen  at  some  distance,  and  that 
her  face  wore  that  ghastly  look  that  unerringly 
marks  the  consumptive.  Her  halt  was  short. 
She  went  west  in  Lake  street  at  a  rapid  pace, 
and  I,  on  the  opposite  side  kept  a  short  dis- 
tance behind.  She  crossed  the  street  at  Mar- 
ket and  passed  quickly  over  the  bridge   on  the 


RAY    BURTON.  QI 

south  walk,  turned  north  into  Clinton  street  and 
passed  up  a  stairway  on  the  east  side  almost 
opposite  the  Chicago  shot  works.  This  prob- 
ably was  the  abode  of  this  mysterious  woman. 

I  took  a  survey  of  this  triangular  block, 
whose  longest  angle  projects  northward  like 
the  prow  of  some  cumbersome  freight  vessel, 
and  was  convinced  that  it  was  the  haunts  of  all 
sorts  of  wicked  characters.  I  could  not  class 
this  woman  with  such.  However  I  had  nothing 
but  looks  from  which  to  judge.  The  little 
business  rooms  that  might  be  compared  to  its 
forecastle,  were  occupied  by  a  lager  beer  ven- 
der, on  whose  windows  was  displayed  this 
somewhat  biblical  inscription— "The  House  of 
David."  The  struggling  gaslight  could  hardly 
penetrate  the  smoky  darkness,  and  the  sub- 
dued moonlight  rather  imperfectly  revealed  the 
top  of  the  majestic  shot  tower  which  seemed  to 
enjoy  existence  in  an  altogether  different  at- 
mosphere from  this  smoke-begrimed  street. 
Everything  was  repulsive.  Even  the  very  mud 
in  the  gutter  appeared  to  hold  itself  up  as  a 
sample  of  the  filthiest  of  its  kind. 

With  every  step  that  I  placed  between  my- 
self and  this  questionable  locality  came  a  feel- 
ing of  relief  as  if  awaking  from  a  nightmare. 


92  RAY    BURTON. 

I  was  none  the  wiser  for  having  followed  this 
woman,  and  felt  heartily  ashamed  of  the  act. 
As  I  walked  homeward,  however,  these  words 
kept  ringing  in  my  ears — "Your  sin  is  greater 
than  mine."  I  did  not  understand  them,  but  I 
resolved  to  tell  no  one,  and  await  develop- 
ments. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


A  FEW  weeks  later,  Frank  failed  to  put  in 
an  appearance  one  morning,  and  later  in 
the  day  sent  word  that  his  mother  was  very 
sick.  That  evening  on  leaving  the  store  I 
secured  his  number  from  the  usher,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  looking  them  up.  I  was  greatly  sur- 
prised when  I  again  found  myself  in  Clinton 
street  and  near  the  shot  tower.  Excited  curi- 
osity was  fast  taking  the  place  of  friendly  inter- 
est, by  this  time.  Sure  enough,  there  was  the 
identical  stairway  up  the  flight  of  which  I  had 
seen  the  mysterious  woman  pass.  I  paused  a 
short  time  at  the  foot  to  compose  myself,  and 
then  quietly  proceeded  to  the  rooms  above^ 
where  I  saw  on  a  poor  but  clean  bed  in  the 
farther  room,  the  wasted  form  of  the  woman 
whom  I  had  but  recently  shadowed.  Frank 
met  me  with  a  kind  but  sad  smile.  His  mother 
looked  at  me  rather  blankly  for  an  instant,  and 
then,  seeming  to  recognize  me,  motioned  me  to 


94  RAY    BURTON. 

a  seat  near  her,  and  bade  Frank  go  on  an  errand 
to  the  druggist's. 

"  Mr.  Burton,"  she  remarked,  after  Frank  had 
gone,  "I  have  wanted  an  opportunity  to  thank 
you  for  your  kindness  to  my  boy.  You  look 
surprised,  and  well  you  may.  Talking  is  diffi- 
cult. Ah,  me!"  After  lying  motionless  with 
her  eyes  closed  for  a  short  time,  apparently  col- 
lecting her  thoughts,  she  resumed:  "  How 
much  you  resemble  your  father!  You  see,  I 
have  known  you  a  long  time.  When  you  were 
just  a  little  baby,  I  lived  with  my  mother  next 
door  but  one  to  your  folks,  on  Morgan  street. 
Then  I  was  a  proud  young  woman  with  bright 
prospects.  By  placing  too  much  confidence  in 
the  promises  of  a  certain  man,  all  was  changed. 
Humiliation  killed  my  poor  mother.  You 
surely  will  keep  this  secret  from  a  dying 
woman.  I  feel  that  I  can  trust  you.  Mr. 
Wentworth,  your  father's  old  partner,  is  Frank's 
father,  but  the  boy  does  not  know  it.  That  is 
not  all, — "  Here  she  was  overcome  by  a  fit  of 
coughing,  and  when  she  had  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  again  talk,  Frank  had  returned.  I 
gave  them  such  words  of  sympathy  as  my  puz- 
zled brain  would  permit  at  that  time,  and  after 


RAY    BURTON.  95 

assuring  them  that  I  would  call  again  soon,  I 
withdrew. 

I  took  a  circuitous  way  home,  so  I  should 
have  ample  time  to  think  about  these  dis- 
closures. I  now  understood  the  words — "Your 
sin  is  greater  than  mine."  How  strange  it  all 
seemed  to  me!  Grace  Wentworth  was  the  one 
who  bore  some  resemblance  to  Frank,  who  was, 
innocently  enough  to  be  sure,  so  nearly  related 
to  her. 

My  brain  refused  sleep  that  night;  and,  in  the 
still  watches,  when  I  was  sorely  perplexed 
about  this  secret  that  had  been  intrusted  to  my 
keeping,  that  poor,  outraged  life  in  the  rooms 
in  Clinton  street,  went  out.  I  never  heard 
from  her  lips  what  more  she  had  to  reveal. 
Hulda  Jansen  was  dead,  and  I  kept  her  secret  a 
long  time  thereafter. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


ONE  Sunday,  several  months  after  the 
Grays  had  left  our  neighborhood,  I  went 
to  Lincoln  park  to  visit  "my  pets,"  as  I  was 
wont  to  style  the  animals.  I  never  tired  of 
watching  the  pelican  and  his  wife  on  a  fishing 
voyage.  They  are  the  real  fishers  of  nature, 
being  provided  with  a  sort  of  dipnet  appen- 
dage, through  the  meshes  of  which  no  fish  ever 
escapes.  When  one  made  a  sweep  with  this 
extended  pouch,  the  other  did  likewise  and  in 
the  same  direction,  giving  to  their  concerted 
action  rather  an  automatic  appearance.  When 
one  caught  a  fish  he  held  his  head  up  and 
began  such  a  shaking  of  that  capacious  trap 
and  snapping  of  those  long  mandibles,  as  to 
create  quite  a  commotion  in  the  water  and  to 
bring  further  proceedings  to  a  standstill.  This 
was  done  presumably  to  kill  the  fish,  or  at  least 
to  deprive  it  of  a  portion  of  its  wriggling 
power,  before  swallowing  it. 

The     somewhat     circumscribed    prairie-dog 


RAY    BURTON.  97 

village  is  another  interesting  spot,  but  its  little, 
saucy  denizens  are  as  different  from  their  wild 
kind  as  are  the  urban  newsboys  from  their 
country  cousins. 

On  this  particular  visit  I  lingered  by  the  bear 
dens  longer  than  at  any  other  place.  I  ob- 
served that  the  polar  bear,  in  his  monotonous* 
semicircular  motion,  appeared  to  place  his  feet, 
at  each  repeated  swing,  in  his  former  tracks, 
which  seemed  to  have  worn  depressions  in  the 
cement  and  stones.  Among  the  black  bears 
was  one  uglier  than  the  rest,  that  betrayed  the 
faculty  of  appreciating  applause.  It  performed 
many  cunning  tricks  to  the  constant  delight  of 
the  on-lookers.  Among  other  pranks  it 
actually  tried  to  embrace  a  stream  of  water 
that  the  keeper  saw  fit  to  turn  upon  it; 

As  I  turned  away  from  these  diverting  scenes, 
whom  should  I  meet  face  to  face  but  Florence 
Gray  escorted  by  Mr.  Archie  Glynn.  That  Mr. 
Glynn  should  not  remember  me  was  no  sur- 
prise, but  to  be  looked  at  blankly  and  passed 
by  unrecognized  by  an  old  acquaintance  and 
schoolmate,  was  more  than  I  could  endure.  I 
seated  myself  on  a  bench  near  by  and  took  up 
a  train   of  thoughts  that  may  have  lasted  for 


98  RAY    BURTON. 

hours  for  all  I  now  remember  of  the  lapse  of 
time.     It  marked  a  turning  point  in  my  life. 

I  then  and  there  resolved  to  take  up  the 
study  of  stenography.  I  realized  fully  that  the 
girl  for  whom  I  had  cared,  in  a  shy  sort  of  way, 
for  so  long  a  time  had  out-grown  me  to  the  ex- 
tent that  she  associated  with  a  man  who  was  ten 
years  my  senior,  and  was  ashamed  to  recognize 
me  in  his  presence.  I  felt  that  I  could  do  noth- 
ing to  bring  my  maturity  up  to  her  ideal,  there- 
fore, with  a  feeling  of  discontent,  born  of  a 
desire  to  rise,  I  took  this  method  of  bettering 
my  condition,  not,  however,  with  a  hope  of  ever 
attracting  Florence  Gray's  attention  again. 

To  any  one  who  has  gone  through  the  task  of 
learning  the  multiplicity  of  meaning  to  be  had 
from  a  few  deflected,  inflected,  curved,  vertical 
and  horizontal  lines,  punctuated,  as  it  were, 
with  a  sprinkling  of  dots  and  dashes,  an  ex- 
planation of  the  hard  work  that  I  encountered 
is  unnecessary. 

During  the  winter  following  this  resolution  I 
made  rapid  progress  in  shorthand  by  working 
at  night.  When  spring  came,  many  a  Sunday 
morning  found  me,  with  other  would-be  report, 
ers,  seated  high  up  in  a  certain  religious  sanc- 
tuary, endeavoring  to  "take  down"  the  deliber- 


RAY    BURTON.  99 

ately  enunciated  sermon.  I  found  this  to  be 
excellent  practice,  however  much  it  appeared 
to  divert  the  gospel  truths  from  their  wonted 
channel. 

I  can  say  truthfully,  as  a  sort  of  apology  to 
my  conscience  on  this  score,  that  many  times 
after  those  days  of  practice,  did  I  resort  to  that 
same  sanctuary,  attracted  thither  by  the  logical 
as  well  as  the  ethical  purity  of  the  sermons. 

Early  in  the  following  summer  I  went  to  Val- 
paraiso, Indiana,  where  I  spent  a  term  in  the 
Northern  Indiana  Normal  School,  devoting  all 
my  time  to  speed  exercises  in  shorthand.  I 
went  there  on  the  recommendation  of  a  friend, 
not  because  I  could  not  have  had  the  same 
training  here,  but  because  I  wished  to  get  away 
from  the  city,  where  there  would  be  nothing  to 
attract  me  from  the  subject  in  hand.  There  I 
made  rapid  advancement,  and  quit  the  place 
with  feelings  of  regret,  because  of  the  warm 
friends  among  the  teachers  and  students  whom 
I  should  most  likely  never  see  again.  This  oft 
repeated  aphorism  of  one  of  the  professors  was 
like  an  inspiration  to  me — "You  will  be  success- 
ful in  your  work  just  to  the  extent  that  your 
honest  efforts  merit  success."  These  remarks 
were  directed  more  particularly  to  those  stu- 


100  RAY    BURTON. 

dents  who  were  preparing  to  become  teachers 
in  the  public  schools,  but  appropriately  applied 
to  any  of  us. 

Hundreds  of  boys  and  girls  of  limited  means 
have  gone  there  and  received  such  instruction 
as  enabled  them  to  help  themselves,  who  prob- 
ably never  could  have  gone  beyond  the  district 
schools,  had  it  not  been  for  the  low  tuition  and 
cheap  board  offered  at  this  institute.  Few  in- 
deed there  were,  who,  after  having  spent  some 
time  in  this  workshop,  left  without  taking  with 
them  some  of  the  magnetic  sparks  of  enthusi- 
asm that  permeate  the  atmosphere  of  the  school. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


I  WAS  very  agreeably  surprised  on  my  return 
from  Valparaiso,  to  learn  that  Mr.  Went- 
worth  had  arranged  with  Judge  L — ,  with  whom 
he  was  intimately  acquainted,  to  give  me  a  trial 
at  court  reporting.  I  went  to  work  at  once  and 
soon  became  accustomed  to  the  routine.  I 
found  it  more  to  my  liking  than  anything  I  had 
yet  done. 

Mr.  Wentworth,  who  now  owned  a  snug  home 
on  Jackson  boulevard,  had  but  recently  pur- 
chased a  new  surrey,  and  nothing  seemed  to 
please  him  better  than  to  drive  by  and  take 
mother,  or  some  one  of  our  family  with  them 
when  they  went  driving.  He  appeared  in  his 
best  mood,  however,  when  only  Grace  and 
myself  were  with  him.  He,  at  such  times,  in- 
sisted that  we  should  occupy  the  rear  seat  while 
he  sat  before  and  attended  to  the  driving. 
Grace  and  I  pretended  that  we  were  wealthy 
folks  and  that  Mr.  Wentworth  was  our  coach- 
man.    In  all  of  our  jokes  and  fun  he  took  as 


102  RAY    BURTON. 

much  interest  as  though  he  were  a  boy.  He  said 
it  made  him  feel  young  to  be  with  such  chick- 
ens as  we  were. 

When  I  called  at  their  house,  he  invariably 
took  us  off  to  the  parlor  where  he  would  turn 
the  music  while  Grace  played  her  latest  pieces. 
Often  he  said, — "Now  Grace  play  just  one  more 
for  Ray  before  he  goes" — always  leaving  the 
impression  that  it  was  expressly  for  me. 

Mother,  Miss  Baldwin  and  I  had  many  rides 
that  summer  and  fall,  all  because  of  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  new  carraige.  I  was  pleased  most  of 
all  on  mother's  account,  as  she  was  in  poor 
health  and  it  seemed  to  do  her  so  much  good 
to  get  out.  Late  in  the  fall  she  had  gone  with 
them  to  Jackson  park,  and  thus  got  to  see  the 
World's  Fair  buildings,  then  nearing  comple- 
tion, although  the  fair  itself  she  was  not  per- 
mitted to  see. 

One  day  when  we  were  remarking  about  Mr. 
Wentworth's  attentions  to  us  of  late.  Miss 
Baldwin  said,— "I  think,  Ray,  that  Mr.  Went- 
worth's intentions  are  to  have  you  and  Grace 
marry,  providing  he  can  have  his  way 
about  it." 

"Why,  Miss  Baldwin,  what  a  fertile  imagina- 
tion you  have!" 


RAY    BURTON.  IO3 

"I  imagine  notiiing,  Ray,  but  I  have  observed 
many  actions  that  have  to  me  but  one  meaning. 
I  should  be  very  much  pleased  myself,  because 
I  always  wish  the  best  for  you,  and  I  think 
Grace  a  jewel." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  at  that  time  I 
felt  growing  upon  me  a  fondness  for  Grace's 
society.  It  came  unsolicited.  We  enjoyed 
being  together  because  we  were  untrammeled 
by  any  stiff  rules,  and  felt  at  liberty  to  talk 
and  act  almost  with  the  freedom  of  a  brother 
and  sister.  I  am  quite  sure  Grace  regarded  me 
in  no  other  light  than  that  of  a  brother.  Her 
refined  sensibilities  would  have  received  a  se- 
vere shock  had  she  suspected  that  which  Miss 
Baldwin's  penetration  fathomed.  It  would 
have  appeared  to  her  like  trafficking,  in  futures 
with  human  souls  as  a  commodity. 

I  knew  enough  of  Grace  to  know  that  if  I 
should  awaken  to  the  realization  that  I  loved 
her,  I  would  have  to  woo  and  win  her.  She 
was  not  of  that  disposition  to  be  just  simply 
given  away  by  her  parents. 

Just  how  nearly  correct  my  surmises  were 
will  be  seen  further  on. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 


I  AM  constrained  to  insert  the  subject  matter 
of  this  chapter,  however  much  I  should  pre- 
fer to  omit  it.  One  cannot  expatiate  on  his 
own  grief.  That  is  not  to  be  expected.  It  is 
too  sacred  to  him — too  peculiarly  his  own  to  be 
published,  yet  it  seems  necessary  here,  in  order 
to  complete,  to  some  extent,  the  narration  of 
this  somewhat  kinked  chain  of  happenings. 

Toward  the  close  of  December,  1892,  my 
mother  died.  She  had  not  been  in  good  health, 
as  I  have  before  stated,  and  she  contracted  a 
severe  cold  which  developed  pneumonia,  and 
being  too  weak  to  withstand  its  vigorous  rav- 
ages, she  fell  an  easy  prey  to  it.  I  was  left 
alone.  She  was  my  nearest  and  dearest  friend, 
and  the  only  relative  of  whom  I  had  any  knowl- 
edge. My  sorrow  was  keen.  I  thought  if  I 
could  but  have  her  back  again,  I  would  do  any- 
thing within  my  power  that  would  add  to  her 
comfort  and  happiness.  I  thought,  too,  of  the 
many,    many  little    deeds  that  I    might    have 


RAY    BURTON.  IO5 

done,  that  I  had  left  undone.  Then  it  was  that 
I  was  truly  thankful  that  I  could  recall  many 
acts  and  deeds  of  love  that  I  had  bestowed 
upon  her;  often  from  a  sense  of  duty,  it  may 
be,  yet  more  frequently,  I  now  think,  from  the 
promptings  of  a  loving  heart.  Without  these 
thoughts  to  console  me,  I  believe  that  my  sor- 
row would  take  on  an  accusative  form  and 
would  haunt  me  throughout  life. 

She  was  buried  by  the  side  of  my  father  in 
Rose  Hill  cemetery.  There,  on  that  bleak  De- 
cember afternoon,  I  lingered  for  a  time.  "I 
have  two  graves  now,"  I  soliloquized,  "and  one 
is  a  fresh  one.  There  is  room  for  one  more 
here.  There  can't  be  any  question  as  to  who 
will  be  the  next  to  lie  down  within  this  en- 
closure." 

Ah,  how  we  living  folks  juggle  with  Death, 
so  to  speak!  We  anticipate  him,  we  measure 
him,  we  cut  garments  to  fit  him. 

It  now  is  my  custom  to  visit  this  beautiful 
burial  ground  frequently.  Whatever  may  be 
our  theories,  as  to  the  destiny  of  the  soul,  we  all 
have  our  graves.  Of  them  we  are  certain.  The 
one  who  believes  in  re-incarnation  has  his,  and 
erects,  it  may  be,  a  towering  shaft  of  granite 
thereon.     The  one  whose  belief  is  that  the  soul 


I06  RAY    BURTON. 

rests  within  the  grave  until  called  by  the  resur- 
rector  of  the  dead,  may  be  seen  to  train  roses 
over  the  tomb.  To  him,  who  thinks  that  the 
soul  dies  with  the  body,  there  comes  a  silent 
prompting  to  grave  upon  the  slab,  a  tender 
sentiment.  And  that  one,  who  inclines  to  the 
belief  that  immediately  after  death  the  soul 
wings  its  way  to  some  realm  of  bliss,  may  be 
impelled  to  plant  upon  his  mound  of  mould,  a 
shrub  of  arbor  vitae.  Forgetting  for  a  time  our 
creeds  and  isms,  we  theorists  treat  our  graves 
in  very  much  the  same  manner.  We  mark  them 
with  stones,  variously  carved  and  lettered.  We 
decorate  them  with  flowers  in  summer.  They 
are  charges,  in  a  certain  sense,  left  to  our  keep- 
ing. Then,  too,  each  one  represents  a  recollec- 
tion that  we  would  not  have  put  from  us,  al- 
though sorrow  be  so  profoundly  blended  with  it. 

Here,  by  these  mounds  of  mine,  I  often  sit 
alone  of  summer  evenings  and  recall  words  and 
deeds  of  the  departed  ones.  It  is  a  sort  of 
relief,  too,  to  think  that  the  turmoil  of  life  has 
not  the  power  to  disturb  that  peaceful  rest  into 
which  they  have  passed,  after  a  comparatively 
short  participation  in  the  mysterious  drama  of 
life. 

On  some  occasions,  when  I  got  furthest  away 


RAY    BURTON.  I07 

from  myself  and  deepest  into  reflection,  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that  then,  if  ever,  was  an  oppor- 
tune time  tor  departed  spirits  to  commune  with 
the  living.  I  have  heard  well-remembered 
voices  and  songs,  not  with  my  ears,  however, 
but  through  my  memory.  At  some  times  I 
have  fancied  myself  under  a  sort  of  beneficent 
spell  that  held  me  as  by  the  influence  of  a 
strangely  beautiful  unwritten  prayer.  It  is  true, 
I  never  was  permitted  to  hear  the  flutter  of 
angelic  wings,  but  I  have  felt  the  warm  tears 
start  forth,  caused  by  the  tacit  power  of  a  ten- 
der recollection.  At  such  times,  however,  a 
sense  of  peaceful  resignation  steals  in  upon 
him,  who  can,  by  the  faith  that  is  within  him, 
discern  for  these  silent  sleepers,  through  the 
dim  vista  of  the  future,  the  radiance  of  a  glori- 
ous resurrection  dawn. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 


I  SHALL  have  to  digress  far  enough  to  say- 
that  at  the  time  I  was  at  Valparaiso,  a  fash- 
ionable wedding  took  place  in  a  certain  Wash- 
ington boulevard  residence,  in  Chicago.  The 
newspapers  had  much  to  say  about  it  at  the 
time.  One  in  particular  had  written  it  up  in  a 
style,  the  unique  descriptiveness  of  which  must 
have  caused  the  live-stock  editor  to  turn  green 
with  envy.  I  procured  a  copy  of  this  same 
paper  and  read  and  reread  the  article.  All  the 
while  there  was  a  perceptible  fluctuation  in  the 
operations  of  my  physical  economy, — a  con- 
gestion somewhere  within  me  that  must  have 
caused  me  to  lose  color,  for  my  room-mate  re- 
marked, "What  has  happened.  Burton?  You 
look  as  pale  as  a  ghost." 

I  evaded  his  question,  but  it  was  quite  a 
while  before  I  regained  my  normal  condition,  I 
am  sure. 

Somewhere,  folded  away  in  the  bottom  of 
my  trunk  is  that  same  paper,  I  have  no  doubt 


RAY    BURTON.  IO9 

with  blue  pencil  marks  indicating  that  article. 
The  callow  youth  is  prone  to  preserve  such 
things,  it  seems.  It  is  remarkable  though,  how 
soon  they  become  "back  numbers",  so  to 
speak. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  explain  that  the 
principals  in  this  social  event  were  Miss  Flo- 
rence Gray  and  Mr.  Archie  Glynn. 

Arthur  had  been  at  home  a  short  time,  lo  be 
present  at  his  sister's  marriage,  but  had  gone 
again  before  I  returned.  He  was  graduated 
that  year,  but  did  not  come  home  until  in  the 
winter,  so  that  I  had  seen  but  little  of  him  be- 
fore my  mother's  death.  I  remember  that  on 
the  day  of  the  burial,  it  was  the  grasp  of  his 
warm  hand  that  brought  me  back  to  the  real- 
ization that  I  was  a  temporal  being  and  needed 
shelter  and  food. 

I  was  always  welcome  at  Arthur's  home,  but 
it  was  owing  to  his  personality  that  I  felt  in  the 
least  at  ease,  for  the  surroundings  were  so  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  the  home  of  our  boyhood 
days. 

Now,  that  my  own  home  was  broken  up, 
there  was  no  other  place  that  seemed  as  much 
like  it  as  that  of  kind-hearted,  motherly  Mrs. 
Wentworth.     There  was  extended  to  me  a  wel- 


no  RAY    BURTON. 

come,  the  sincerity  of  which  could  not  be 
equivocated.  Then,  too,  Grace's  vivacity  was 
stimulating.  I  visited  them  often.  Here  it  was 
that  Arthur  found  me  one  Sunday,  that  winter, 
and  here  it  was  that  he  and  Grace  met  for  the 
first  time  for  several  years.  She  was  in  her 
best  mood,  and  entertained  us  for  a  short  time, 
despite  the  fact  that  he  had  called  to  take  me 
right  away  with  him.  After  that  casual  meet- 
ing that  Sunday  afternoon,  each  of  these  friends 
of  mine  had  asked  me  about  the  other  repeat- 
edly, until  I  found  myself  a  sort  of  speaking 
tube  between  two  souls  that  had  for  each  other 
a  strong  and  mutual  attraction.  I  had  observed 
it  from  the  first,  and,  reading  it  in  the  light  of 
the  truth  as  I  did,  I  could  but  bow  to  the  in- 
evitable. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


EARLY  in  March,  1893, 1  secured  a  position, 
through  the  kindly  directed  offices  of  Mr. 
Wentworth  and  Judge  L — ,  to  do  certain  work 
at  the  World's  Fair,  for  a  city  newspaper. 

A  few  days  before  going  to  take  charge  of 
my  new  duties,  however,  I  went  to  call  on  my 
old  friend,  Mr.  Cay,  remembering  that  I  had 
not  seen  him  for  several  weeks. 

The  old  man  received  me  with  the  same  ex- 
clamation with  which  he  had  greeted  me  for 
years, — '"Ello  Ray,  me  lad,  'ow  do  ye  do!" 
And  old  Trip,  now  grown  quite  gray  and  de- 
crepit, opened  his  little  red  mouth  and  fawned 
upon  me  with  as  beaming  a  smile  as  I  had  ever 
seen  on  human  face. 

How  I  loved  those  old-time  friends — man  and 
dog! 

"I've  sold  me  shop,  Ray,  and  goin'  to  quit 
work — gettin'  too  hold,  ye  see.  The  doc  says 
this  river'U  be  the  killin'  o'  me  ef  I  don't  git 
away  from  't." 


112  RAY    BURTON. 

"You  are  not  going  away  from  the  city,  I 
hope,  Mr.  Cay?"  I  asked. 

"No.  I'll  be  tinkerin'in  the  shop  at  'ome,  on 
Carroll  avenue,  ye  know." 

"I've  been  lookin'  for  ye  these  several  days," 
he  continued.  "'Ere's  a  small  box  as  was  left 
'ere  by  'Ankins.  'E  told  me  to  sec  that  ye  got 
it,  and  now  I  'ave  kept  me  word  with  'im." 

I  took  the  parcel, but  before  quitting  his  shop, 
perhaps  for  the  last  time,  we  had  a  long  chat 
about  his  future  arrangements,  my  prospects, 
and  some  past  happenings  that  took  us  back  to 
our  first  acquaintance.  After  promising  to  call 
to  see  him  sometimes  at  his  home,  I  took  leave 
of  him.  I  went  directly  to  my  room  so  I  might 
be  alone  when  examining  the  mysterious  box, 
left  me  by  one  Hankins,  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  many  years.  As  I  removed  the  coarse  paper 
that  was  wrapped  around  the  box,  I  must  con- 
fess I  experienced  some  queer  misgivings,  I 
thought  of  all  the  infernal  machines  of  which  I 
had  ever  read,  and  even  gave  the  dynamite 
bomb  a  serious  reflection.  These  fears  were 
but  momentary,  however,  and  left  me  when  I 
remembered  that  I  was  no  monarch,  nor  pro- 
moter of  a  trust,  nor  even  a  railway  president. 
No  one  could  have  designs  on  my  life,  so,  with 


RAY    BURTON.  II3 

a  Steady  hand,  I  proceeded  to  undo  the  parcel. 
I  first  came  to  a  small  pasteboard  box,  within 
which  was  a  smaller  box  of  the  same  material, 
and  inside  this  one  was  yet  another.  You  can 
hardly  imagine  to  what  a  pitch  one's  curiosity 
gets  wrought  by  undoing  such  a  series  of  con- 
cealments, unless  you  have  passed  through  a 
like  experience.  I  felt  certain  that  this  third 
box  contained  the  thing  itself  that  Mr.  Han- 
kins  would  have  me  see,  whatever  that  might 
be.  I  opened  it  carefully,  and  with  my  pencil 
parted  some  cotton  that  was  on  top,  and  re- 
vealed to  my  astonished  eyes,  my  father's 
watch.     I  recognized  it  at  a  glance. 

I  had  often  dreamed  that  father  had  come 
back  to  live  with  us  again,  and  that  same  feel- 
ing of  glad  surprise  which  I  experienced  on  see- 
ing him,  in  my  dreams,  was  now  partly  realized 
on  beholding  once  more  his  watch,  which  I 
never  expected  to  see  again.  My  earliest 
recollection  of  it  was  when  he  used  to  place  it 
against  my  ear,  and  sometimes  allowed  me  to 
hold  it  in  my  hands.  I  wept  and  laughed  by 
turns,  like  any  girl. 

In  the  bottom  of  the  box  was  a  piece  of 
writing  paper,  folded  rather  clumsily,  which  I 
opened  and  read.     The  composition  bore  marks 


114  RAY    BURTON, 

of  laborious  effort  in  every  particular.  It  was 
written  by  Mr.  Hankins  and  addressed  to  me 
personally.  He  explained  that  he  had  received 
the  watch  from  two  sailors,  and  recognized  it 
by  my  father's  initials  on  the  inside  of  the  case. 

They  confessed  to  having  taken  it  and  a 
small  sum  of  money  from  my  father,  but  pro- 
tested that  they  had  not  thrown  him  into  the 
river.  They  said  that  he  had  fallen  in,  when 
trying  to  free  himself  from  their  grasp. 

He  further  explained  that  this  took  place  on 
an  out  voyage  in  the  upper  lake  region  and  that 
after  they  landed  at  Duluth  he  never  saw  any- 
thing more  of  these  men. 

In  my  own  mind,  I  concluded  that  Hankins 
had  been  an  accomplice  in  this  dastardly  crime. 
He  probably  knew  of  my  father's  plans  and 
saw  him  get  the  money  at  the  bank.  The  more  I 
thought  of  it,  the  more  firm  I  grew  in  my  opin- 
ion that  he  was  connected  with  it.  I  resolved 
to  do  some  sleuthing  on  my  own  account.  I 
kept  the  matter  of  the  watch  a  secret,  but  told 
Mr.  Cay  to  be  sure  to  tell  Hankins  that  I  wished 
to  see  him,  if  he  chanced  to  call  on  him  again. 

But  after  all,  why  a  robber  should  return  an 
old  watch,  the  intrinsic  value  of  which  could 


RAY    BURTON. 


115 


not  exceed  ten  dollars,  after  so  many  years,  was 
more  than  I  could  understand. 

I  prized  the  old  time-piece  highly,  notwith- 
standing that  the  return  of  it  caused  me  to  sus- 
pect the  man  who  had  taken  the  trouble  to 
return  it  to  me. 


CHAPTER    XX. 


I  HAD  rented  the  old  cottage  on  Morgan 
street  to  a  small  family  soon  after  my 
mother's  death,  and  Miss  Baldwin,  my  kind- 
hearted  teacher,  had  gone  to  live  with  friends 
on  the  North  Side.  I  had  been  to  see  her  just 
before  I  began  work  in  Jackson  park,  at  which 
time  she  told  me  that  she  intended  spending  a 
large  portion  of  her  time  at  the  World's  Fair 
during  the  summer,  after  which  she  thought 
she  would  return  to  her  New  England  home. 

She  owned  two  vacant  lots  on  the  north 
shore,  that  she  had  bought  some  years  before 
as  an  investment,  she  said,  and  was  now  quite 
elated  over  the  fact  that  they  had  appreciated 
considerably  of  late,  largely  because  they  had 
appended  to  them  that  mysterious  yet  highly 
valuable  something  that  obtains  only  on  abut- 
ting property,  styled  "riparian  rights."  And 
that  reminds  anyone  who  may  take  the  trouble 
to  look  into  the  matter,  that  there  is  not  much 
said   about   those  same  rights   by   real  estate 


RAY    BURTON.  II7 

people  on  the  South  Side, — probably  because 
the  larger  portion  of  them  was  gathered  in  by 
a  certain  incorporation,  (whose  porcine  pro- 
clivities it  is  pretty  generally  conceded  are 
abnormally  large,)  long  before  there  was 
much  value  attached  to  them  on  the  outlying 
north  shore. 

It  was  a  source  of  much  satisfaction  to  me 
that  Miss  Baldwin's  investment  had  proved  to 
be  a  good  one,  for  she  was  so  industrious  and 
deserving  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  could 
come  to  her  no  fortune  so  good  but  that  she 
would  fully  merit  it.  She  displayed  good  judg- 
ment, too,  in  disposing  of  her  lots  that  spring, 
since  the  depreciation  that  set  in  that  fall  has 
hardly  yet  reached  the  bottom  of  the  scale. 

About  this  time  it  was  that  I  called  one  day 
at  the  store  of  E.  L.  Warp  &  Co.,  to  greet  my 
old  associates,  and  Frank  in  particular. 

Poor  boy,  I  felt  sorry  for  him!  He  was  work- 
ing on,  just  where  he  began,  with  no  prospects 
in  sight  for  anything  better.  True,  his  salary 
had  been  increased  a  time  or  two,  yet  there 
seemed  to  be  no  place  open  to  him  for  advance- 
ment. Mr.  Hildebrand  had  taken  a  sort  of  dis- 
like to  him,  too,  despite  his  honesty  and  faith- 
fulness.    His   antipathy  partook  somewhat  of 


I  I  8  RAY    BURTON. 

that  same  spirit  that  sometimes  leads  a  man  to 
step  out  of  his  way  to  kick  a  faithful,  yet  fawn- 
ing dog. 

I  made  up  my  mind  to  try  to  find  something 
better  for  Frank,  and  by  securing  the  co- 
operation of  some  of  my  friends,  we  were 
enabled  to  place  him  as  shipping  clerk  in  a 
wholesale  furnishing  goods  house,  where  he  is 
to-day,  a  valuable  and  trusted  employe. 

Arthur  had  taken  the  law  course  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  and  had  now  set  up  as  a 
lawyer.  He  was  associated  with  an  old  friend 
of  his  father,  who  had  an  extensive  practice. 
His  prospects,  therefore,  were  somewhat  better 
than  those  of  the  average  beginner. 

At  this  time  Arthur  was  a  frequent  caller  at 
the  home  of  the  Wentworths.  Grace  was 
highly  pleased,  I  was  sure,  because  she  had 
asked  me  questions  about  him  and  his  pros- 
pects in  the  most  innocent  way  possible.  I 
was  the  older  brother,  you  see,  and  she  treated 
me  as  such.  Never  did  I  allow  this  artless 
little  sister  to  know  that  any  other  kind  of  love 
had  ever  found  lodgment  in  my  heart.  Mrs. 
Wentworth  was  just  too  tickled  to  conceal  the 
fact, — but  that  was  quite  motherly  and  natural, 
for  Arthur  was  good,  manly,  rather  prepossess- 


RAY    BURTON.  IIQ 

ing  in  appearance,  and  back  of  all  that  was  the 
fact  that  his  father  was  a  wealthy  man.  Mr. 
Wentworth,  I  believe,  was  rather  passive  on  the 
subject,  but  of  course  he  could  raise  no  objec- 
tions. Arthur  had  interrogated  me,  too,  quite 
as  artlessly  as  had  Grace.  There  seemed  to  be 
open  to  me  a  remarkable  opportunity — a  double 
role  of  "Brother." 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


UpLYSIAN  FIELDS"  would  have  been  a 
lL  good  name  for  Jackson  Park  during  the 
summer  of  1893.  "White  City"  was  very  ap- 
propriate, "Dream  City"  was  much  written  of, 
but  "World's  Fair"  was  the  everyday  name  by 
which  it  was  called,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  officially  it  was  the  "World's  Columbian 
Exposition." 

Here  it  was  that  I  put  in  six  or  seven 
months  of  steady  work  that  came  more  nearly 
to  being  amusement  than  anything  that  I  had 
ever  done.  Not  because  my  work  was  light, 
certainly,  but  on  account  of  the  surroundings. 
I  think  this  was  pretty  generally  the  case  with 
all  classes  of  workers  on  the  grounds.  A 
position  here  was  looked  upon  as  an  opportun- 
ity and  not  as  a  task.  Why,  I  was  told  that 
among  the  sweepers  in  the  Illinois  building 
was  an  ex-congressman.  If  that  were  the  case 
I  am  confident  that  he  never  has  had  occasion 
to  regret  the  fact  that  he  accepted,  for  a  time. 


RAY   BURTON.  121 

SO  humble  a  position.  He  is  none  the  less  re- 
spected to-day  because  he  worked  out  his  tu- 
ition in  that  greatest  of  universities. 

That  Columbian  guard  whom  I  knew  only 
as  "Cap,"  doubtless  has  finished  his  college 
course,  and  may  now  occupy  an  enviable 
position  in  life.  I  have  no  doubt  however,  that 
when  he  looks  back  over  his  past  life  for  "red 
letter"  days,  he  finds  that  many  of  them  oc- 
curred in  the  summer  of  1893. 

Among  my  chair-pusher  acquaintances  was 
one  young  man  in  whom  I  became  much  inter- 
ested. He  was  so  intelligent  and  well-bred 
that  one  could  not  help  liking  him.  He  was 
not  a  college  student.  Most  likely  he  had  a 
better  knowledge  of  Jersey  cattle  and  Clydes- 
dale horses  than  he  had  of  Latin  roots  and 
logarithms.  It  was  his  ambition,  however,  to 
prepare  to  enter  the  University  of  Chicago  and 
sometime  to  be  graduated  from  it.  Whether 
he  followed  up  that  plan  and  is  now  a  student 
in  that  institution  that  borders  on  the  once 
famous  Midway,  or  was  led  by  circumstances 
along  some  other  path  of  duty,  in  his  country 
home,  I  shall  always  think  that  he  found  those 
days  spent  at  the  "push"  end  of  a  chair  an  ex- 
cellent preparative. 


122  RAY    BURTON. 

In  this  delightful  place  one  never  grew  tired 
of  the  scenes  about  him.  The  eye  could  follow 
those  beautiful  perspectives  that  displayed  fa- 
cades of  magnificent  architecture,  greenwood 
isles,  and  sparkling  lagoons,  and  in  a  short  time 
review  them  with  renewed  interest.  The  one 
who  feasted  much  on  these  outdoor  scenes  and 
afterward  traveled  abroad,  marveled  little,  it 
seems  to  me,  on  beholding  for  the  first  time  the 
streets  of  Venice  or  the  celebrated  Champs 
Elysees, — nor  did  he  manifest  much  surprise  at 
the  magnitude  of  the  Coliseum. 

Volumes  might  be  written  in  a  reminiscent 
way  by  any  one  who  spent  much  time  at  that 
great  exposition,  as,  indeed,  much  has  been 
published  aside  from  of^cial  statistics;  but  I 
must  beg  pardon  for  this  slight  digression,  and 
pass  on  to  that  part  that  relates  to  the  tale. 

One  of  my  evening  duties  was  to  report 
casualties  from  a  certain  number  of  emergency 
hospitals,  as  well  as  from  the  regular  ones- 
There  was  one  day,  I  remember,  that  they  were 
taxed  beyond  their  several  capacities.  With 
the  imaginings  of  an  old  schoolmaster,  !  see,  in 
my  mind,  a  hundred  hands  go  up,  displaying 
their  owners'   eagerness  to    explain    that    my 


RAY    BURTON.  ^  1 23 

meaning  is  anticipated.  Yes,  it  was  the  9th  of 
October — "Chicago  Day,"  if  you  so  prefer  it. 

When  one  stops  to  think  of  it,  there  certainly 
are  many  people  in  this  big  world  who  have  a 
vivid  recollection  of  that  particular  day  and  its 
throng. 

I  had  but  started  on  my  round  that  evening 
when  I  noticed  the  men  lifting  a  patient  from 
an  ambulance  at  one  of  the  hospitals,  who 
looked  familiar.  I  stepped  nearer  and  saw  that 
it  was  Mr.  Wentworth,  very  pale  and  appar- 
ently dead.  He  had  been  caught  in  the  jam 
at  the  terminal  station  and  trampled  upon  and 
otherwise  seriously  injured,  the  wagon  attend- 
ant explained.  I  sent  a  messenger  to  the  office 
for  a  relief;  and,  being  acquainted  with  the 
head  attendant  at  the  hospital,  was  permitted 
to  remain  near  Mr.  Wentworth,  and  finally  to 
assist  in  caring  for  him,  as  there  was  a  dearth 
of  nurses.  I  had  not  long  to  watch,  however. 
Once,  just  before  the  physician  got  around  to 
his  cot,  he  opened  his  eyes  and  fastened  them 
upon  me.  There  was  in  them  a  look  of  an- 
guish that  cannot  be  described.  He  seemed  to 
recognize  me  and  made  an  effort  to  speak,  but 
no  sound  could  he  utter.  He  squeezed  my 
hand    for   an   instant,   then    relaxed    his  hold, 


124  RAY    BURTON. 

closed  his  eyes  and  relapsed  into  a  sort  of 
comatose  condition,  from  which  the  physician 
was  unable  to  arouse  him.  He  was  dead.  It 
thus  became  my  painful  duty  to  convey  to  Mrs. 
Wentworth  news  as  sad  as  was  that  which  she 
once  brought  to  our  home  on  Morgan  street. 
Permit  me  to  draw  the  curtain  here. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


TWO  years  have  passed  since  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  death,  and  it  is  again  October. 
Time  has  wrought  its  usual  number  of  changes, 
although  the  economy  of  nature  goes  on,  un- 
disturbed by  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  men. 

Archie  Glynn's  father  had  failed  financially 
soon  after  the  marriage  of  that  fastidious 
young  man,  which  threw  him  upon  his  own 
resources — or  his  father-in-law.  Having  some 
of  the  American  grit  mixed  with  his  affected 
make-up,  he  got  down  to  real  work,  developing 
the  former,  to  the  everlasting  detriment  of  the 
latter.  By  making  what  he  could  of  his  some- 
what neglected  law  business,  and  teaching  for 
several  months  in  the  night  schools,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  upon  his  feet,  so  to  speak,  by 
the  end  of  the  first  year  after  the  disaster,  and 
is  now  doing  fairly  well,  Arthur  tells  me. 

Arthur  and  Grace  were  married  a  year  ago, 
in  a  very  quiet  manner.  They  are  a  congenial 
couple  in  the  strictest  sense,  and  it  would  be 


126  RAY    BURTON. 

a  hard  matter  to  find  a  happier  pair  anywhere. 
I  enjoy  a  brother's  privileges  in  their  home, 
which  is  no  small  consideration  to  a  man  whose 
home  is  where  he  takes  off  his  hat — allowing 
this  to  be  descriptive  of  one's  standing  in  a 
boarding  house  or  hotel. 

Among  Mr.  Wentworth's  papers  in  his  strong 
box,  was  a  sealed  envelope  addressed  to  me, 
and  which  was  delivered  to  me  soon  after  his 
decease.  The  contents  has  been  kept  a  pro- 
found secret  by  me  until  now.  Omitting  the 
date  and  address,  it  read  thus: 

"Doubtless  you  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  it 
has  been  my  wish  that  my  daughter,  Grace,  and 
you  should  marry.  If  this  desired  wish  should 
ever  be  realized,  will  you  not,  for  her  sake, 
keep  the  contents  cf  this  letter  forever  a  secret? 
Should  your  marriage  with  her  never  take 
place,  however,  then  it  is  my  wish  that  you  use 
this  letter  as  a  voucher  in  securing  an  equitable 
adjustment  of  matters  hereinafter  explained,  in 
which  my  wife  and  daughter  will  co-operate, 
when  they  come  to  know  the  facts. 

You  probably  remember  some  of  the  circum- 
stances connected  with  your  father's  death.  He 
drew  four  thousand  dollars  from  the  bank  in 
the  afternoon,  and  came  to  my  place  about 
four    o'clock.       There     he    found  a   telegram 


iwaiting  him  which  informed  him  that  the 
man  with  whom  he  was  about  to  close  a  deal 
would  be  away  from  home  for  a  few  days  and 
that  he  should  come  on  a  stated  date  later. 
After  reading  the  message  he  went  away  to  at- 
tend to  some  business,  but  returned  again  later 
in  the  evening,  at  which  time  he  expressed  a 
wish  to  leave  his  wallet  in  my  safe,  as  the  banks 
were  closed.  On  leaving  he  went  out  at  the 
back  door,  as  he  had  often  done  before.  I 
closed  it  after  him  and  immediately  locked  up 
for  the  night.  The  next  morning  I  went  to  the 
store  earlier  than  usual,  and  saw  some  men 
dragging  the  river  near  the  bridge.  They  soon 
hauled  a  body  ashore  which  proved  to  be  your 
father.  I  was  so  thoroughly  excited  that  I  did 
not  think  of  the  wallet  until  late  that  day. 
Then  it  was  that  the  tempter  said  'Let  it  remain 
in  its  hiding.  The  supposition  is  that  it  was 
taken  by  the  robbers.'  I  was  weak  enough  to 
delay,  and  each  day  that  I  procrastinated  made 
an  explanation  all  the  more  difficult,  until  I 
gave  up  in  despair.  There  was  but  one  person 
who  suspected  me,  and  that  one  is  now  dead. 

I  have  led  a  miserable  life  ever  since.  I  have 
suffered  much  and  I  have  deserved  to  suffer 
much,     I  beg  your  forgiveness." 

After  reading   this   letter,  and  reflecting  on 


28  ■       RAY    BURTON. 

the  rigid  economy  that  my  mother  was  com- 
pelled to  practice  after  father's  death,  I  liter- 
ally gnashed  my  teeth  and  tore  my  hair. 

This  man  would  have  me  marry  his  daughter 
so  that  his  family  should  never  know  what  a 
rascal  he  really  was,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
square  matters  to  a  certain  extent  with  his  con- 
science. 

I  meditated  upon  this  letter  for*  many  days. 
That  four  thousand  dollars  was  mine  by  right, 
to  say  nothing  of  interest.  Here  arose  a  diffi- 
culty, however,  that  was  not  easily  bridged. 
These  were  my  nearest  friends  and  how  could 
I  apprise  them  of  this  obligation  without  ruth- 
lessly throwing  open  ffle  door  of  their  family 
closet  and  revealing  the  grewsome,  grinning 
skeleton  therein  concealed? 

I,  too,  procrastinated. 

This,  secret,  however,  has  become  burden- 
some to  me.  I  have  longed  to  tell  it  to  some 
one,  and  thus  relieve  my  mind;  so,  my  patient 
reader,  I  have  told  the  facts  to  you  in  a  tale,  a 
stray  copy  of  which  I  earnestly  hope  may 
never  fall  into  the  hands  of  these  dear  friends 
of  mine. 


The  End. 


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